The warning from the U.S. and its four closest intellignce partners follows several arrests of U.S. service members for allegedly trying to pass info to China.
The U.S. and its intelligence partners warned on Wednesday that China is working to recruit current and former Western military pilots and other service members to help strengthen Chinese air power and gain insights into Western aviation tactics.
Describing China’s efforts as a “persistent” threat, the warning came in a joint bulletin from the so-called Five Eyes intelligence partners, five nations that share sensitive intelligence: the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is using private companies in South Africa and China to hire former fighter pilots from Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and other Western nations to train PLA Air Force and Navy aviators,” the bulletin said.
“The PLA wants the skills and expertise of these individuals to make its own military air operations more capable while gaining insight into Western air tactics, techniques, and procedures. The insight the PLA gains from Western military talent threatens the safety of the targeted recruits, their fellow service members, and U.S. and allied security.
I guess the US might have to up their treatment of vets to prevent intel from leaks.
By “up their treatment” do you mean “up their surveillance state apparatus and impose travel restrictions on their most valuable staffers”?
I was thinking more along the lines of healthcare benefits and pensions. 😅
Yeah, that’ll never happen.
Immigration to China it is then.
Or we could just build up the working class with unions and worker co-ops
Don’t worry we have enough republican traitors that they’ll gladly fill the positions.
What ? They do not hire russian ones ? /sarcasm
They don’t want them for raw numbers, they have plenty of people who are able to become pilots. They need the intel to help catch them up to and counter western countries. This is something that has been ongoing forever, just the countries change.
i agree and my sarcasm was supposed to underline the fact that russia doesn’t have the most advanced technology and does not have the most advanced qualified pilots in the world … (i’m not very good at making clear sarcasm)
CHOSEN WANNNNN
China: they can steal the tech to make great jets but don’t have the talent to fly them.
The thing is education is a kind of technology in and of itself. They don’t need individual pilots, they need trainers.
There’s this theory floating around that Chinese people are inherently inferior to their western peers, and the only thing they can do to keep up is to cheat.
I’m not sure how hiring experienced professionals to train new recruits constitutes “cheating”. I never heard it phrased that way during Operation Paperclip or later on during the Cold War espionage campaigns. But apparently it is now cheating to pay professional flight trainers money to train people in a different country. So 🤷
Racism in my jingoism?
Impossible.
Ask any wannebe pro athlete: You can’t steal talent.
I am pretty sure that this is not new. I remember reading articles about this a few years back.
kagis
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says
