I’ve written before about China’s Thousand Talents Program which lures academics to become lecturers at Chinese universities, sometimes by offering them as much as $50,000 per month. It seems China has taken a similar approach to western military assets. Today Sky News is reporting China has been offering former UK military pilots as much as £240,000 to help train the People’s Liberation Army how to defeat western warplanes.
China has recruited dozens of former British military pilots to teach the Chinese armed forces how to defeat western warplanes and helicopters in a “threat to UK interests”, officials have revealed.
One official said some 30 mainly ex-fast jet but also some helicopter pilots – lured by annual salaries of around £240,000 – are currently in China training pilots for the People’s Liberation Army, in what a defence analyst described as a stunning breach of security.
A retired senior Royal Air Force officer said: “Wow… that is appalling. What were they thinking?”
This has been going on since at least 2019 but recruitment took a downturn during the pandemic in part because foreigners couldn’t travel to China. Recently the program has been ramping up again. The Chinese haven’t been going directly to the pilots but are instead using a head hunting company based in South Africa to recruit them.
“We’ve seen it ramp up significantly – it is an ongoing issue,” a Western official said in a briefing to journalists. Current serving personnel are being targeted but none are thought to have accepted.
The pilots have experience on fast jets and helicopters and come from across the military and not just the Royal Air Force. They have flown Typhoons, Jaguars, Harriers and Tornados…
Some of the pilots are in their late 50s and left the military some time ago. Pilots of other allied nations have also been targeted.
Under current law it’s technically not illegal to do this so authorities are appealing to retired pilots and asking them not to accept these offers. The Ministry of Defense Press Office issued a statement today on Twitter saying it was taking steps to “penalise” this activity.
1. Defence Intelligence are engaging with the individuals already involved to ensure they are fully aware of the risk of prosecution under the Officials Secrets Act.
— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) October 18, 2022
3. We are conducting a review of the use of confidentiality agreements across Defence with the aim of providing additional contractual levers to prevent individuals breaching security.
— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) October 18, 2022
Sky News says the goal of these programs isn’t merely to have western pilots teach Chinese pilots how to fly, it’s worse than that.
“It’s not training Chinese pilots on Western jets. It’s taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities,” the official said.
“It’s really the Chinese having an understanding of what the latest generation of tactics and approaches and capabilities would be, were the Chinese military to get into situations coming up against those types of assets.”
This also included British military helicopters such as Wildcat and Merlin.
It is understood that China has attempted to recruit former pilots who have trained on the top secret, US-led fifth generation, F35 fast jet.
It’s hard to see how any pilots trained in the UK can possibly think this is a good idea but I suppose China presents it as an opportunity to make a quick buck and doesn’t mention that they’re really looking for information that could be harmful to western military pilots.
So far it sounds as if only about 30 pilots have fallen for it. The is a mention that the Chinese have approached retired pilots from other western countries but no specific countries are named.
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