Lack of familiarity with the English language and poor radio transmission discipline is a problem for foreign pilots，Quite often they gossip in Mandarin on a main control frequency about the price of vegetables, said one pilot. There are still many areas in China where position reports are made on HF radio and despite China’s prowess in launching satellites for foreign customers, satellite communications are still a long way from providing a viable alternative. Pilots also find the controllers use draconian power, possibly as a result of military influence. Controllers have closed an entire airway due the weather. They have been obliged to do this because of the military’s refusal to allow deviation from the airway. Similarly traffic has been obliged to divert from airport because the controllers considered the weather to be unacceptable. This can be embarrassing for pilots who have flight planned fuel reserves with the actual and forecast weather. Fortunately, as a result of pressure from the airlines, the Chinese are starting to yield to the standard practice of allowing the aircraft commander to judge conditions himself before making an approach. China has been cautious in venturing into the field of satellite-based navigation systems. Forty eight of China’s airport are now equipped with Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). Beijing and Shanghai Hongqiao are the only airports with Category II ILS approaches, and with the addition of Guangzhou airport in the south, are the only international gateway airports in China. Pilots operating regularly in China are optimistic about improvement. General operations manager of Dragon Air Felix Hart says that in the last three years he has noticed enormous improvements, especially in the level of English language comprehension. Another pilot said: Although they are still reluctant to give radar vectors, they will often tell us how far we are from the ILS centerline and we know that they have us on radar when they ask us to squawk our SSR transponder identity. He cautions:Many controllers lack terrain awareness, so we have to be very careful about following their instructions. 1.If the controllers talk about the price of vegetables on a main control frequency, it shows that （ ）．