The chief of Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) has said it is “unacceptable” that former military pilots are being recruited to train Chinese armed forces, and Western intelligence agencies have shared information to warn pilots against working for Beijing.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued an intelligence alert in October 2022 after it was reported that around 30 former fast jet and helicopter pilots had been attracted to help train China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with lucrative compensation packages of about $270,000 a year.
In an interview on Wednesday with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) at the Avalon Air Show in Australia, RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said, “We made the decision to go public on this in a very loud, clear way, that it’s unacceptable and it’s something that we were prepared to call China out publicly.”…