Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
South Korea is keeping alive its option on a second batch of three destroyers with Aegis air defense systems. The second ship of the first batch, Yulgok Yi I, was launched Nov. 14. The navy tells Yonhap news agency that building a further three ships remains under consideration. It is unclear whether the design would be the same.
Taiwan’s EVA Airways will begin daily direct flights between the island and China next month, thanks to a cross-strait agreement to loosen restrictions. EVA, based at Taipei’s Toayuan Airport, will fly to Shanghai, Hangzhou in Eastern China and Shenzhen in the South. Taiwan and China are gradually allowing more direct contacts between their economies, which Taiwan has traditionally opposed. Until the gradual liberalization began a few years ago, anyone flying between Taiwan and mainland China had to land at an intermediate spot, usually Hong Kong.
Sweeping reforms of the Chinese aerospace sector will present the global industry with a team of focused competitors with specialties ranging from engines to fighters to aircraft equipment.
