US Sanctions Companies That Train Chinese Pilots, Help China in Weapons Development

Two Chinese SU-30 fighter jets take off from an unspecified location to fly a patrol over the South China Sea in a file photo. (Jin Danhua/Xinhua via AP)

The U.S. Department of Commerce on June 12 added dozens of China-based and other firms to its Entity List (pdf), citing concerns regarding national security and foreign policy risks.

A group of companies, including Frontier Services Group Ltd., a security and aviation company, and Test Flying Academy of South Africa, were sanctioned for “providing training to Chinese military pilots using Western and NATO sources,” the department stated.

The agency deemed these activities as contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The listed companies will be subject to export restrictions.

Other firms were blacklisted for helping China build its hypersonic weapons and upgrade its military, the department added.

“It is imperative that we prevent China from acquiring U.S. technologies and know-how to enable their military modernization programs,” Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary for export enforcement, said in a statement.

Added to the list were Beijing Ryan Wende Science and Technology Co. Ltd. and Xinjiang Kehua Hechang Biological Science and Technology Co. Ltd. The two companies are alleged to have facilitated the Chinese regime’s monitoring of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region by supplying equipment.

China criticized the sanctions imposed on its entities, calling it the “wrong practice of politicizing, instrumentalizing, and weaponizing economic, trade, and sci-tech issues with a pretext of human rights or military-related issues.”

“The United States has repeatedly overstretched the concept of national security, abused state power, unwarrantedly suppressed Chinese companies, and wantonly disrupted the international economic order and trade rules,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing in Beijing on June 12.

Test Flying Academy of South Africa

Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) was highlighted in a May 2022 report by Intelligence Online that stated it was involved in training pilots for the Chinese military—the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“TFASA has been providing training for Chinese commercial pilots for more than 10 years in partnership with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), a state-controlled group which builds aircraft in collaboration with the two aircraft construction market leaders, Boeing and Airbus Group, as well as helicopters and fighter aircraft—like the PLA’s JL-10,” the report reads.

“TFASA operates in a joint venture with aviation giant AVIC-International Flight Training Academy (AIFA), which trains Chinese and African commercial airline pilots. The South African company has links with the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) and provides civil aviation training in the province of Liaoning.

“It also trains pilots to fly aircraft produced by AVIC subsidiary, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), which is on the way to becoming the world’s third-biggest aircraft manufacturer,” it adds.

In April 2022, a video that went viral on Twitter claimed to show a European trainer and a Chinese air force pilot jumping out of their JL-10 training plane in Anhui Province. The PLA air force (PLAAF) uses the JL-10, a supersonic light combat fighter, for training missions. A division of AVIC, the Hongdu Aviation Industry Corp. is the company that makes the JL-10.

Pilots Hired by China

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued an intelligence alert in October 2022 after it was reported that about 30 former jet and helicopter pilots had been hired through lucrative compensation packages of about $270,000 a year to help train China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pilots.

A spokesperson from the UK’s Ministry of Defence told The Epoch Times in a statement issued on Oct. 28, 2022, said that the ministry would take decisive steps to stop the Chinese regime from attempting to headhunt current or former UK military pilots to train Chinese armed forces in China.

“All serving and former personnel are already subject to the Official Secrets Act, and we are reviewing the use of confidentiality contracts and non-disclosure agreements across Defence, while the new National Security Bill will create additional tools to tackle contemporary security challenges—including this one,” the spokesperson said.

Former US Military Pilot Arrested

A former U.S. military pilot, Daniel Edmund Duggan, was arrested in Australia on Oct. 21, 2022, and is awaiting extradition to the United States because of his alleged work for a Chinese aviation consulting firm from 2017 to 2020.

Boston-born Duggan has been in custody in Australia since October 2022 and appeared in a Sydney court in March by video link from a prison cell for a brief hearing about the U.S. application to extradite him.

Prosecutors allege Duggan received about nine payments totaling about $88,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) and international travel from another conspirator for what was sometimes described as “personal development training.”

Efthymis Oraiopoulos, Jenny Li, and Olivia Li contributed to this report.