UK sent RAF pilots to teach Chinese counterparts and allowed students to attend British military colleges

Published

2 years ago

October 28, 2022

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Britain’s Ministry of Defence sent serving Royal Air Force pilots to China to teach a course to their Chinese counterparts and allowed Chinese nationals to study at UK military colleges, Sky News can reveal.

Up to four frontline pilots took part in the ‘Aviation English Course’ in Beijing that ran in 2016, while at least three Chinese nationals have gone through basic officer training at the RAF’s college at Cranwell in Lincolnshire.

The most recent Chinese officer is thought to have attended the college in 2019 – a time when the UK and its closest ally, the United States, under then president Donald Trump, were increasingly concerned about security threats from China.

A former senior British officer also told Sky News that he had been aware in the past of a number of Chinese nationals who had studied at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham in Swindon – which caters for more senior military personnel from across the army, navy and air force.

“The joke was that they were always on the photocopier the whole time,” the source said.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson said no “fast jet flight training, or any other sensitive training” was ever provided to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).

Earlier this month, the UK government revealed that around 30 former British military pilots were currently in China teaching the Chinese air force how to defeat Western warplanes, saying this activity posed a “threat to UK and Western interests”.

The MoD issued a “threat alert” to caution serving and former personnel against accepting such offers of employment, and officials said they were urgently planning to change the law to make that kind of activity illegal.

But the warnings prompted sources with knowledge of official government-to-government ties between the UK and China to point out that London had previously conducted its own defence training activities with Beijing.

They said it was a bit odd to suddenly turn on this private initiative now without providing the wider context, especially as the former pilots’ work had been declared to officials over many years without prompting such stark objections – even as recently as September of this year.

“So, on the one hand, the MoD is happy to provide international defence training opportunities when the political agenda suits, but now will critique individuals for similar actions,” one source said.

“I am not saying that justifies such a choice [by the former pilots] but you can see that the narratives aren’t quite consistent with what MoD personnel are asked to do.”

‘I’m sure more than English language got talked about’

UK government policy on China was very different a decade ago.

Then prime minister David Cameron sought to strengthen relations with China in what by 2015 he called a “golden era” in bilateral ties.

However, even when ministers were prioritising economic growth, defence officials were well aware of the Chinese security risks, with concern expressed internally about the balance between security and the so-called “prosperity agenda”.

Yet a number of China-UK military interactions still took place, including the Aviation English Course, a separate source said.

They said it “consisted of helping the People’s Liberation Army Air Force learn how to run overseas military deployments”.

The source said about two to four serving RAF pilots were sent to Beijing to teach the course from 5-26 September 2016.

“It was very specific that it had to be frontline military aviators in current flying practice, so I am sure more than English language got talked about.”

The source added that they thought the title Aviation English Course was “a misnomer – why send military pilots rather than teachers?”

Another engagement was to allow a number of Chinese nationals to go through basic initial officer training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire.

Two Chinese nationals – Lieutenant G Huang and Captain S Tong – were on the course in 2015 as the UK government was taking a more favourable view on China.

A defence source said they had both been due to train as engineers back in China and did not receive any RAF pilot training or engineering training.

A third Chinese national also went through the training course as recently as 2019 – a year when UK-China relations were on the decline over concerns about espionage, mobile phone technology, Hong Kong and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims and other minority ethnic groups in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

The defence source said such basic training is conducted across all three services, including the army and the navy, with participants from a range of countries – both friendly and those the UK is seeking to build relationships with.

Such low-level, non-specialist training can be a useful way to build understanding, break down cultural barriers and improve military-to-military relationships.

The MoD declined to respond to questions about the Aviation English Course or about the claims regarding Chinese nationals attending the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham.

Questions also remain about why – given the growing concern about China – it took the UK until this month to raise the alarm about former British fast jet and helicopter pilots accepting contracts to train the Chinese military.

A South African company that has hired a number of the individuals involved said its employees have been in “regular” contact with the UK Ministry of Defence since the firm was established in 2003.

“The MoD has not raised any issue regarding any aspect of the training provided by the company or its employees,” a spokesperson for the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) said.

“As recently as September 2022, a TFASA employee was invited to an interview with MoD personnel in the UK, with no concerns raised by the representatives from the MoD present.”

The spokesperson also rejected UK claims that its work with the Chinese posed any kind of security threat.

“TFASA’s employees are subject to a very clear company ethics protocol in relation to sensitive information and are also governed by national obligations as to secrecy,” they said.

Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said the government has “serious questions” to answer.

“The first duty of any government is to protect our nation’s security,” he said in a statement.

“The Tories have been too slow to emerge from their ‘golden era’ with China and repeatedly blasé about security threats. This official deployment could have compromised details of UK military operations, technology and training to a foreign power, posing a significant threat to our national security.

“Ministers must answer serious questions about why they backed this activity and what risks it poses. The public also want reassurance on the actions taken to halt it.”

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

24 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

24 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.

UK

Wes Streeting ‘crossed the line’ by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Published

24 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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Wes Streeting 'crossed the line' by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Wes Streeting “crossed the line” by opposing assisted dying in public and the argument shouldn’t “come down to resources”, a Labour peer has said.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harriet Harman criticised the health secretary for revealing how he is going to vote on the matter when it comes before parliament later this month.

MPs are being given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines, so the government is supposed to be staying neutral.

But Mr Streeting has made clear he will vote against legalising assisted dying, citing concerns end-of-life care is not good enough for people to make an informed choice, and that some could feel pressured into the decision to save the NHS money.

He has also ordered a review into the potential costs of changing the law, warning it could come at the expense of other NHS services if implemented.

Baroness Harman said Mr Streeting has “crossed the line in two ways”.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

“He should not have said how he was going to vote, because that breaches neutrality and sends a signal,” she said.

“And secondly… he’s said the problem is that it will cost money to bring in an assisted dying measure, and therefore he will have to cut other services.

“But paradoxically, he also said it would be a slippery slope because people will be forced to bring about their own death in order to save the NHS money. Well, it can’t be doing both things.

“It can’t be both costing the NHS money and saving the NHS money.”

Baroness Harman said the argument “should not come down to resources” as it is a “huge moral issue” affecting “only a tiny number of people”.

She added that people should not mistake Mr Streeting for being “a kind of proxy for Keir Starmer”.

“The government is genuinely neutral and all of those backbenchers, they can vote whichever way they want,” she added.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously expressed support for assisted dying, but it is not clear how he intends to vote on the issue or if he will make his decision public ahead of time.

The cabinet has varying views on the topic, with the likes of Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood siding with Mr Streeting in her opposition but Energy Secretary Ed Miliband being for it.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being championed by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, who wants to give people with six months left to live the choice to end their lives.

Under her proposals, two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and a High Court judge must give their approval.

The bill will also include punishments of up to 14 years in prison for those who break the law, including coercing someone into ending their own life.

MPs will debate and vote on the legislation on 29 November, in what will be the first Commons vote on assisted dying since 2015, when the proposal was defeated.