The rapid growth of commercial aviation in China is slowly but surely forcing Chinese authorities to change the way they manage the country’s 9.9 million sqkm of airspace. Control of air traffic in China is in the hands of the Chinese military, which retains priority for airspace use but has been slowly increasing the level of cooperation with civil authorities. As commercial aircraft movements grow, pressure on the limited amount of commercial airspace mounts and new steps are being taken to make Chinese airspace available to the civil aviation segment and relieve the bottlenecks of military control.