The United States sanctioned four companies in Hong Kong, South Africa and the United Kingdom and accused them of using Western and NATO sources to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircrew in South Africa.
The sanctioned firms include Global Training Solutions Limited and Smartech Future Limited in Hong Kong, Grace Air (Pty) Ltd in South Africa and Livingston Aerospace Ltd in the United Kingdom, according to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).
The BIS said the four companies were sanctioned because of their links to the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA), which was sanctioned a year ago. Livingston Aerospace is owned by former British military pilot Craig Penrice, a former project manager of TFASA.
In June last year, the BIS added 16 companies to its Entity List as they had allegedly provided training to Chinese military pilots using Western and NATO sources. US companies need to apply for licenses before shipping items to them while license applications will be reviewed under a presumption of denial.
The sanctioned 16 companies include TFASA, Frontier Services Group, AVIC International Flight Training Academy (AIFA) and Chinese Flight Test Establishment (also known as the Shaanxi-based AVIC Flight Test Center).
AVIC primarily produces various types of military aircraft for China, including the J-20 fighter, the J-15 carrier-based fighter and the Y-20 transport aircraft, as well as some civil aircraft.
Duggan’s case
The UK’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on October 18, 2022, that up to 30 former Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Army pilots had been training the Chinese PLA-Air Force.
It said some of the pilots were contracted as early as 2019 through a private South African company and attracted by high salaries up to £237,911 (US$270,000) a year.
Public information showed that the average yearly pay of a RAF pilot is about £58,897. However, the MoD said no one had been prosecuted as the training and the recruiting of pilots did not breach any UK law.
The announcement was made a few days before the US and Australia staged an operation to arrest a former TFASA executive.
On October 21, 2022, Daniel Duggan, a former US Marine Corps pilot, was arrested in Australia at the request of the US government for charges of arms trafficking, money laundering and “conspiracy to defraud the United States by conspiring to unlawfully export defense services to China.”
The US government said Duggan was paid about $100,000 for his services but had not sought permission from the US government to provide the training.
In 2014, Duggan moved to Beijing and started working for TFASA. He renounced his US citizenship in 2016 but backdated the move to 2012 to become an Australian citizen. In May this year, a New South Wales court ruled that Duggan can be extradited to the US. He may face up to 65 years in US prison if found guilty.
Chinese commentators said the West wanted to use the pilot-training issue to promote the China threat theory and form an anti-China group.
“Australia and the UK set up rules to stop their pilots from training Chinese aircrew. Does China really want to learn from their retired pilots? Excuse me, they are not qualified,” a columnist of the state-owned Defense Times said in a commentary.
Five Eyes’ warnings
The Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing outfit comprising the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, increased their collective efforts to curb TFASA’s operation in September.
Canadian media reported that the police were investigating three former Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) fighter pilots who are training military and civilian pilots in China through TFASA.
Also, the UK government said former UK Armed Forces personnel who train foreign militaries around the world can be prosecuted under the National Security Act, which defines “protected information” as “tactics, techniques and procedures.”
The New Zealand government urged seven New Zealanders to stop training the Chinese army.
The PLA is using private companies in South Africa and China to hire former fighter pilots, flight engineers and air operations center personnel from Western countries to train its air force and navy personnel, the Five Eyes said in a joint statement on June 5 this year.
A US National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) official told the media that the Chinese military had recruited former pilots from Britain, New Zealand, Germany and other countries.
In a response to the Five Eyes statement, TFASA said it decided to end the employment of all UK nationals, following legal changes filed in the UK in 2023. It also said it does not currently employ any US nationals while a majority of its employees come from civilian contractors.
The UK-based Livingston Aerospace, founded by Craig Penrice in November 2012, has also been added to the US Entity List. Penrice has not yet replied to Asia Times’ request for comment.
As then TFASA product manager, Penrice wrote in an email in 2021 that Western pilots could go ahead if they were thinking of taking time off, according to a Wall Street Journal report published in December 2022.
In another email, Jean Rossouw, the head of TFASA, told AVIC and Chinese military representatives in March 2021 that a number of Chinese students were “seriously under-qualified and underprepared.”
Read: China hawk: Fix symbolic, ineffective US sanctions
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