Germany Demands China Stop Using Ex-Luftwaffe Fighter Pilots For Training

16 comments
  1. I have a feeling Germany should simply declare this high treason and the problem is gone. Not like China is going to stop after this demand.

  2. Maybe pay the pilots a pension that is withdrawn (and even clawed back) if they work for a hostile state? It’s clear this is about the money for the pilots.

  3. Maybe instead we should pay those pilots more. It’s the one reason they all leave the armed forces and go civilian.

  4. Let’s break these reddit arguments down:

    “Pay them more so they don’t leave.”

    Congratulations! You are now in bidding war with China. Furthermore it is not that easy. These pilots are paid by their rank, or rather former rank, that they held as servents of the Federal Republic of Germany. You can’t just increase only their pay, but instead would either increase the pay of all the officers of that rank or extract only pilots from the pay table which is a whole clusterfuck in itself.

    “Declare it treason!”

    Declare what exactly treason? Treason that you cannot work for another country after your service as a pilot in the Bundeswehr? Now you barred every former german military pilot from working for airlines that are not german.
    Let’s say you declare it treason to work for another countries military after service. Well goodbye jobs as military advisors in friendly NATO countries. And now privat contractors will have them train PLA pilots in Djibouti where the PRC is building a hughe military base.

    These arguments are quite frankly shortsighted and unrealistic. There will definitly be other actions taken in Germany to prevent this behaviour, but to tell the PRC off in a very public manner and calling their behaviour out is simply a practical and basic diplomatic move any country would take!

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