The Chinese Communist Party is short on pilots. And it might be getting help from its main adversary, the United States. But on Capitol Hill, a senator is calling on the Transportation Security Administration to ban U.S. flight schools from enrolling our adversaries. The TSA should end this extraordinary and self-defeating practice without delay.
China is engaged in the largest military buildup in modern history. It is girding itself for war by building everything from underground hospitals to a military command center much larger than the Pentagon. China is an industrial heavyweight with a manufacturing capacity that dwarfs that of previous U.S. foes such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Its shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the United States. In 2024 alone, one Chinese company produced more ships than the U.S. has managed in the past eight decades.
Beijing’s military might and industrial potential are matched by the Chinese Communist Party’s aims. China covets Taiwan, and its president, Xi Jinping, has called on the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade and conquer it by 2027. Should China do so, it would upend the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific and might spark a great power war with the U.S.
This would probably be the most devastating war since World War II, perhaps ever. It must be avoided, yet China’s ambitions to supplant the U.S. as the world’s sole superpower must be thwarted.
One easy, basic step is for the U.S. to stop helping the enemy it might soon have to fight. China perhaps has the weapons it thinks it needs to challenge the United States. But, ironically for a nation of more than a billion people, it might not have the men.
It lacks pilots. According to the International Trade Administration, China is projected to need 130,000 commercial and general aviation pilots by 2043. The need is so great that an estimated 65% of China’s general aviation fleet is dedicated to flight training. Peter Schweizer, author of The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, has said China needs roughly 5,000 pilots a year to meet its civilian and military demands.
China’s pilot shortage has led Beijing to seek solutions abroad. According to the ITA, Chinese airlines are looking for “training opportunities abroad, primarily in the United States, Canada and Australia.”
China’s concerns aren’t merely commercial. The CCP has a Military-Civil Fusion strategy to ensure its communist rulers are in control. Pilots trained to fly commercially can be switched to the military, including for war with the U.S. or its allies.
We shouldn’t be training Chinese pilots. But common sense isn’t as common as it should be. There are holes in our system that our adversary is exploiting.
SHUTDOWN SHOWS WE SHOULD PRIVATIZE AIRPORT SECURITY
In a March 11 letter to the TSA, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) warned that “each Chinese citizen trained at an American flight school helps break through China’s pilot bottleneck.” Banks called on TSA to update its Flight Training Security Program to prevent foreign adversaries, such as China, from attending U.S. flight training schools.
“We must ensure that American flight training programs serve American interests, not Xi Jinping’s dreams,” Banks said. He is right, and the measures he’s calling for should be adopted before more Chinese pilots get off the ground.
