Another bombshell revelation from the book The Invisible Coup is fueling action in Washington. Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) has alerted the TSA to the national security implications of US flight schools training large numbers of Chinese pilots, according to an exclusive report by National Review on Friday.
In his letter, Banks cited investigative reporting, government research, and academic scholarship detailing that Chinese pilots are seeking out training in the US because China’s flight schools are unable to keep up with the civil and military demand for pilots, according to the report. The Chinese government permits prospective pilots to train at approved US flight schools.
The Chinese pilots issue was recently exposed by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer’s latest book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, which has been on the New York Times bestseller list since its debut six weeks ago. “Beijing needs five thousand pilot cadets every year to meet the demand for both military and civilian pilots. Because the Chinese military tightly controls the country’s airspace, it can domestically produce only about 1,200 pilots a year. So, Beijing quietly erected a system to train 3,000 of them a year in the United States,” the book reported. “Across the US, at least sixteen flight schools, operating out of taxpayer-funded airports, are training Chinese cadets—sometimes without disclosing their foreign military ties. They do so by sending future military pilots to the United States posing as civilians to learn how to fly.” [The Invisible Coup, p. 103]
The book names several specific flight schools that have been “approved” for use by the Chinese government, including the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics in Atwater, California, which trains eight hundred Chinese pilots a year. And while the Sierra Academy describes the pilots it trains as civilian airline pilots, the reality is far more complicated, the book says. Sierra participated with several Chinese entities directly tied to the military-industrial complex to create flight training systems within China too.
“Documents show Sierra works with Chinese colleagues involved in aeronautical manufacturing, including those embedded with military contractors and talent pipelines to the communist government,” the book points out. [The Invisible Coup, p. 105]
China’s civilian-military fusion strategy blurs the lines between commercial and military endeavors, the National Review article said, which is why Sen. Banks believes the US must stiffen its vetting requirements for foreign students who wish to attend American flight schools.
“Each Chinese citizen trained at an American flight school helps break through China’s pilot bottleneck. While many of these students will go on to civilian and not military careers, the Chinese Communist Party, through its Military-Civil Fusion strategy, has foreclosed our ability to view this training with the benefit of a doubt,” according to the National Review report.
“The more Chinese citizens there are with aviation training, the more options the Chinese military has to recruit pilots and instructors for its malign purposes,” Banks’s letter said.
Read the full report at National Review Online
