SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — The U.S. and its allies in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing community – Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – warned Wednesday that China is engaged in a global campaign to recruit Western pilots to train its own aviators.
In a rare joint bulletin, the five nations said that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was using several global companies in the recruitment campaign, with the aim of helping Chinese pilots “overcome their shortcomings.” The bulletin warned that the PLA was tapping the “skills and expertise of these individuals” to improve its own air operations.
“China’s People’s Liberation Army has been aggressively recruiting Western military talent to train their aviators, using private firms around the globe that conceal their PLA ties and offer recruits exorbitant salaries,” said Michael C. Casey, the director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).
An NCSC official told The Cipher Brief the bulletin had been issued “because this is a persistent threat that continues to evolve,” featuring firms that had shifted locations and tactics and operated under different names. “We seek to deter any current or former Western military personnel from taking actions that could imperil their military colleagues, harm our national security, and put themselves in legal jeopardy,” the official said.
The bulletin is an explosive addition to a litany of charges leveled by foreign intelligence agencies against China. While U.S. officials have accused China of stealing military secrets – including designs for American-made fighter jets – the recruitment campaign represents a parallel effort to improve the performance of Chinese pilots and gain knowledge about Western tactics.
“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,” the bulletin said.
The warnings come as China is engaged in a broad-ranging buildup of its conventional military and nuclear arsenal, and amid concerns that Chinese leader Xi Jinping may move in the coming years to invade Taiwan or enforce a blockade of the island. Any action against Taiwan, which China has claimed for decades as its own, would require significant air assets.
“Poaching Western military expertise enables the PLA to advance its air capabilities, improve planning for future operations, and better counter Western military strategies – all to the detriment of the United States, its allies, and their service members,” the NCSC official said. “Western recruits who train the PLA may increase the risk of future conflict by reducing our deterrence capabilities and put their military colleagues at risk in such a conflict.”
How China recruits Western pilots
An NCSC official said the recruitment had been ongoing “for several years,” driven by a web of private companies working in concert with the PLA. The companies typically conceal their PLA ties in pitches made via headhunting emails and online job platforms. They offer pilots six-figure salaries, generous benefits, and the opportunity to fly advanced military aircraft.
The issue first came to light following the 2022 crash of a Chinese fighter plane in which the pilots ejected. In a videotape of the incident, one of the pilots was a English-speaking Westerner.
Later that year, the British Ministry of Defense issued a security alert stating that several Royal Air Force pilots had been contracted by a South African company to train PLA Air Force pilots. In 2023, similar warnings surfaced involving former Luftwaffe pilots in Germany and former pilots for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
According to this week’s bulletin, the PLA is now using private companies to hire former fighter pilots from those and other Western countries to train its Air Force and Navy aviators. The initial offers come from companies with no obvious ties to China – the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA), for example – but officials said the connection quickly becomes clear.
U.S. officials said that soon after the recruited pilots begin their work, they are matched with Chinese pilots for training sessions. The bulletin said the Chinese military had set up training centers for their pilots in South Africa, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
Last September, then-Air Force chief Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. (he is now Chair of the Joint Chiefs), warned American pilots against assisting the Chinese. “The People’s Liberation Army wants to exploit your knowledge and skill to fill gaps in their military capability,” Brown wrote in an internal Air Force memo.
It’s not clear how many Western pilots have been recruited for the training; one U.S. official said that “dozens” had taken the jobs, and Britain has said at least 30 of its former Royal Air Force pilots have trained the Chinese military.
“Even one is too many,” the NCSC official told The Cipher Brief.
The New York Times reported that while U.S. intelligence believed the performance of Chinese fighter pilots had improved over the past year, it wasn’t clear whether that was a result of the Western pilots’ training or simply a function of increased “hours that Chinese pilots are logging in homegrown training programs.”
Trying to stop the campaign
Intelligence officials said the bulletin was meant to deter current or former service members from engaging in the training, but the warnings came with an acknowledgement that efforts to thwart the recruitment campaign had fallen short.
“Recent actions by Western governments have impacted these operations, but PLA recruitment efforts continue to evolve in response,” Casey, the NCSC director, said.
Asked at a White House briefing how the Pentagon might stop American pilots from accepting the offers, Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the Defense Department regularly stresses the importance of “loyalty for your country” to service members.
The challenge is that recruits apparently have no idea – at least from the initial offers – that accepting the jobs will test their loyalty; there is no mention of China or Chinese pilots in the pitch.
Beyond the public warnings, Western nations have imposed commercial restrictions on the companies involved – South Africa’s TFASA and more than a dozen others have been added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, which sanctions firms identified as security risks – and the pilots themselves may face punishment.
Knowingly providing unauthorized training or expertise to a foreign military can lead to civil and criminal penalties. In 2022, a former U.S. Marine pilot working for TFASA was arrested in Australia on a charge of violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits training of foreign militaries without the permission of the U.S. government. The pilot, Daniel Duggan, has denied the accusation and is contesting his extradition to the United States.
As if to acknowledge the challenges inherent in getting Western pilots to ignore the lucrative offers, the five-nation bulletin included common-sense tips – including a phrase that job-seekers anywhere might do well to heed: “Beware of excessive flattery in recruitment pitches, job offers with lucrative salaries and other benefits that seem too good to be true.”
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