Yesterday, the aviation news industry was abuzz with the “cancellation” news of the biennial Airshow China 2020 scheduled to be held from Nov. 10-15 in Zhuhai.
On the morning of Sept. 9, an email was sent out by a gentleman (whom we shall not name here) to all journalists who had indicated their wish to attend the airshow this year.
In the email, the person said “Unfortunately, Airshow China 2020 has been cancelled due to epidemic prevention and control. See you in Zhuhai at Airshow China 2022.”
This lead to news stories being filed by media outlets outside China around noon, before the local media even found out.
Soon after lunch, Chinese news outlets such as Global Times and The Paper also quoted the show organizers on the cancellation of the airshow.
However, in the evening, these news reports in China were withdrawn and the gentleman (whom foreign news outlets had erroneously reported as from the show organizer, he is not) had sent another email to all foreign journalists seeking to “withdraw (their) published news.” His “previous statement is not official announcement from organizer of Airshow China.”
Rumors began circulating in late August that the show was to be canceled, we had reached out to our sources and gotten confirmation that the event was canceled in the first week of September.
It was said that phone calls from government officials were made to various units supporting the event to tell them that the show was canceled. However, the lack of an official statement meant that these units continued to prepare for the airshow to take place in November. The customs unit in Zhuhai were still training their staff on the immigration procedures for foreign participants as of Aug. 28. This lead to a wrong conclusion by some netizens in China that the aerospace exhibition was still proceeding as planned.
As of now, we understand that the Zhuhai City government (Zhuhai Airshow Co. Limited is an entity of the local government) has decided to cancel the show, officials are still seeking approval from higher levels of the government.
There will be an official announcement on the status within this month.