Senator Warns of Threat Posed by Chinese Nationals Receiving US Flight Training

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is urging federal aviation security officials to tighten oversight of U.S. flight schools training Chinese nationals, warning that these programs must “serve American interests” and not the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “dreams.” Banks announced on March 16 that he sent a letter last week to Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). He warned that the CCP is employing a strategy called military-civil fusion that “deliberately erases” the boundary between the civil and the military sectors, meaning that Chinese trainees could become airmen for the Chinese military. “Each Chinese citizen trained at an American flight school helps break through China’s pilot bottleneck,” Banks wrote. “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....