China's military is trying to recruit ex-British Air Force pilots for training and intel, UK says

China's subject is headhunting ex-British Air Force pilots for their grooming skills and expertise — and the U.K. authorities is moving to halt it, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said Tuesday.

"We are taking decisive steps to halt Chinese recruitment schemes attempting to headhunt serving and erstwhile UK Armed Forces pilots to bid People's Liberation Army unit successful the People's Republic of China," an MOD spokesperson told CNBC successful a statement.

Some 30 erstwhile British subject pilots are believed to person gone to enactment for China to bid unit successful its People's Liberation Army, according to a BBC report connected the taxable published Tuesday. Recruitment is said to beryllium ramping up, with erstwhile pilots being offered ample paychecks to enactment for the Chinese.

"All serving and erstwhile unit are already taxable to the Official Secrets Act, and we are reviewing the usage of confidentiality contracts and non-disclosure agreements crossed Defence, portion the caller National Security Bill volition make further tools to tackle modern information challenges – including this one," the MOD spokesperson added.

While grooming and recruiting pilots is not amerciable nether U.K. law, the signifier presents an quality hazard arsenic U.K. officials fishy China's subject aims to larn astir tactics and operations employed by Western pilots. This cognition would travel successful useful successful the lawsuit of a struggle implicit Taiwan, for instance.

China's Ministry of Defense was not instantly disposable for remark erstwhile contacted by CNBC.

The Chinese "can usage 'instructors' not lone to bid caller pilots, which is besides a threat, but besides arsenic quality assets to find Western strengths and weaknesses," Dave Des Roches, an subordinate prof and elder subject chap astatine the U.S. National Defense University, told CNBC.

The ex-pilots are besides offered ample sums of money, with 1 Western authoritative cited by the BBC saying that paychecks were believed to beryllium arsenic overmuch arsenic $270,000 annually. One erstwhile Australian Air Force pilot, speaking to CNBC anonymously owed to nonrecreational restrictions, said helium was offered astir $1 cardinal a twelvemonth to enactment for the Chinese military.

Tensions betwixt China and the West person risen sharply successful caller years. Jeremy Fleming, the caput of Britain's quality bureau GCHQ, said past week that Chinese exertion presents a large menace to the U.K.'s information and prosperity. And President Joe Biden, arsenic portion of the U.S.'s nationalist information strategy, named China as America's "most consequential geopolitical challenge."

According to the nationalist information strategy, China is "the lone rival with some the intent to reshape the planetary bid and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological powerfulness to beforehand that objective."