North Korea's recent missile firings that nearly hit a Chinese passenger plane were very dangerous, and the Chinese government should take a stronger stand against such behavior, a retired military officer argued at the ongoing annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.

On March 4, North Korea launched several missiles into the sea off its east coast just six minutes before a Chinese passenger plane carrying 220 passengers and crew from Japan crossed the ballistic trajectory, according to South Korea's Ministry of National Defense.

This was against ordinary military practice, because a country is responsible for ensuring that no civil aircraft will fly into the airspace of a military exercise at least six hours before or after the exercise, said Wang Hongguang, a CPPCC member and former deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region.

North Korea was fully aware of the route and schedule of the passenger plane but still launched the missiles without informing China and South Korea. Its behavior was extremely unfriendly, Wang said.

The Chinese government should adopt harsher words instead of diplomatic clichés like "the Chinese passenger plane flew over the DPRK territorial airspace and other relevant airspace normally on that day, encountering nothing special" or "China without any doubt will verify the information with relevant parties and express necessary concerns" when commenting on the issue, and should make North Korea promise that similar things won't happen again, Wang said.

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