How China is intensively preparing for a conflict with NATO
(Originally posted here, republished with permission.)
Germany’s defense minister has asked Beijing to stop hiring former Luftwaffe pilots to train Chinese pilots in China, as Berlin fears that NATO secrets could be exposed.
“I mentioned the issue of the German Bundeswehr pilots who have apparently been recruited to ensure the training of (Chinese) pilots ,” Boris Pistorius told reporters after his conversation with Chinese counterpart Li Sangfu Li on the sidelines of a defense and security conference in Singapore.
“I made it clear that I expect this practice to stop immediately and told him that he probably wouldn’t be too happy if I tried to do the same thing,” he added, according to statements given to the press by his ministry.
The Chinese minister “did not deny, but relativized for his part the extent” of this case, he added.
Two German media outlets, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel and the public broadcaster ZDF, revealed that former Luftwaffe pilots have been hired by China for years to train Chinese pilots.
They are employed through front companies based in Seychelles. Some of them are said to have been hired by the business of a member of the Chinese secret service.
The case, according to the said media, has been preoccupying the German parliament’s intelligence control committee for weeks.
“We are concerned because military personnel, after working for the German state, may have jobs that lead them to betray state secrets ,” commission chairman Constantin von Notz told ZDF.
