The “Five Eyes” intelligence cooperative issued a notice on Wednesday that China is continuing its efforts to recruit former Western military personnel, especially pilots, for the purpose of training their own forces.
“The 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,” because Beijing wants to “make its own military air operations more capable while gaining insight into Western air tactics, techniques, and procedures,” the one-page bulletin warned.
When asked to comment on the summary, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Wednesday that Defense Department leaders “always expect that our pilots will uphold the standards that they are trained under and that they keep their training specific to the United States,” while acknowledging that “there are national security risks there.”
The disclosure, created by an organization consisting of intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, is the latest in in their efforts to describe the aggressive actions by the communist country in advancing their military and espionage capabilities.
In October 2022, former U.S. Marine Corps flight instructor Daniel Duggan was arrested in Australia for allegedly teaching Chinese Navy pilots techniques to land on aircraft carriers.
