NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

U.S. and allied intelligence services warned current and former military personnel this week that China’s military is covertly recruiting fighter pilots to train flyers for Beijing’s aircraft carriers and air force.

The warning came in a Wednesday bulletin from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and four other members of the English-speaking “Five Eyes” spy alliance. The group is made up of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are all concerned by the aggressive People’s Liberation Army recruitment effort.

Military personnel that assist the Chinese army may increase the danger of a future conflict by reducing military deterrence. The action would “put their military colleagues at risk in such a conflict,” the counterintelligence report said. “The PLA wants the skills and expertise of these individuals to make its own military air operations more capable, while gaining insight into Western air tactics, techniques and procedures.”

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The report added, “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 Chinese military’s recruitment program also targets current allied military personnel as well as those who have left service from NATO countries and other Western states. The program also involves the use of companies in South Africa and China that have been hiring former fighter pilots from Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Australia, the United States, and other Western nations to train both its navy and air force.

Commercial restrictions have been imposed on companies linked to the Chinese army’s recruitment effort, including the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, Beijing China Aviation Technology Co., Stratos, and other Chinese companies that are exploiting Western and NATO personnel, the report said.

“This threat’s scope and scale prompted more than 120 officials from U.S., NATO, and partner countries to convene a conference in January 2024 to counter this activity,” the report said.

The problem was highlighted by the case of former Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan, who is facing extradition from Australia to the United States on charges he illegally trained Chinese pilots to land on aircraft carriers. Mr. Duggan was arrested by Australian police in October 2022 after he returned from eight years in China.

After the arrest, British military authorities issued a warning to military personnel not to train Chinese military pilots at the South African flight training academy where Mr. Duggan, who renounced his U.S. citizenship, also worked.

Michael C. Casey, director of the counterintelligence center, said recent steps by allied governments have cut into the Chinese recruitment effort, which continues to evolve.

“To overcome their shortcomings, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 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,” Mr. Casey said.

The counterintelligence report said the recruitment ploys are not always obvious, because the Chinese military’s role in the training is often hidden.

Potential pilot trainers have been contacted through friends and through military and executive recruitment emails, professional networking, and online job sites. Job offers have been made to the targeted pilots with ties to the Chinese military hidden from the candidate, including promises of lucrative contracts and the opportunity to fly exotic aircraft.

Key personnel sought by the Chinese are military pilots, flight engineers and air operations center personnel, the report said. China is also seeking technical experts familiar with Western military tactics, techniques and procedures.

“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 partners and allies and their service members,” the report said.

Beijing racing to deploy domestic Starlink

China is working to copy Elon Musk’s Starlink system of small satellites that enable easy access to the internet from remote locations.

In late 2023, Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology, known as Genesat, unveiled its version of a flat-panel satellite as part of a space race with Starlink, the online newsletter The Wire China reported this week. The satellite is the size of a motorcycle and a key element of China’s space race to build its own version of Starlink’s thousands of small orbiting satellites.

“It used to take two to three months to design and customize a satellite,” Cao Jin, the general manager of Genesat, told the newsletter. “Now the factory can churn out a satellite every one and a half days and produce up to 300 a year.”

Mr. Musk’s Starlink had deployed 6,000 low Earth satellites for its network. Plans by the company call for launching 36,000 satellites in the coming years. Genesat, by contrast, has launched fewer than 200 small satellites for its communication system.

China views Starlink as a threat to its ability to control information for its domestic audience. The internet in China is tightly monitored and controlled by what analysts say is the world’s most sophisticated censorship technology. A Starlink connection would give Chinese netizens free access to the internet and circumvent what critics call the government’s “Great Firewall.”

China declared satellite internet to be a national priority in 2020 and created a company called Guowang, with plans for 13,000 satellites. Guowang is under control of the China Satellite Network Group (China SatNet), which in turn is controlled by the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Another large Chinese satellite constellation called G60 Starlink is planned with 12,000 satellites, of which 648 are deployed.

Still another company, the rocket company Shanghai Landspace Hongqing Technology, announced plans for deploying 10,000 Honghu-3 satellites.

With thousands of satellites flying in orbit, there is a potential for massive space junk. One benefit for the military, however, is that the large number of small satellites complicates space warfare efforts to target satellites with missiles or jammers in the event of a future conflict.

The U.S. Army is using a military version of Starlink called “Starshield,” which uses high-strength encryption, as a backup system in case the main communications networks are electronically jammed in battle.

MIT biologist: Evidence shows COVID came from lab leak

A molecular biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has provided strong evidence that the COVID-19 virus most likely began from a laboratory leak at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Alina Chan, writing in The New York Times on Sunday, stated that the hotly debated topic of the virus origin should be resolved in favor of Chinese scientists mishandling deadly modified bat viruses manipulated in the Wuhan laboratory.

“A growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China,” Ms. Chan wrote. “If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.”

The SARS-like virus behind the pandemic surfaced in Wuhan, where extensive research on SARS-like viruses was conducted at the Wuhan Institute. Scientists there were hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli, dubbed the “Bat Woman” for her research.

“Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live roughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan,” Ms. Chan said.

Also, the virus that caused COVID, SARS‑CoV‑2 virus, is very contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire. But there is no known trace of infection at its source or any place along the thousand-mile journey from southern China to where it emerged in Wuhan.

Ms. Chan argues that the theory that COVID originated in an animal and jumped to humans is not supported by strong evidence and any cases at the Wuhan wild animal market probably took place after the virus was already spreading in humans.

“Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders,” Ms. Chan said.

“Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.”

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.