Originally Posted by
finestkind
Somewhat unbelievable about the talk of traitors and loyalty from such a country as England. Mired in a history of civil wars to royalty that sided with Hitler. Politicians that make decisions for the betterment of the country while more for the betterment of themselves. Decrying those that take the golden coin offered by a country by pointing out the horrendous human rights violations of those countries even while their history rivals such atrocities. Today's enemies', tomorrows trading partners which is all about the golden coin.
What is a traitor. Someone that sells state secrets, technology etc or someone who buys the products of another country. Loyalty to what? A country that is willing to place your life on the line but not willing to allow you to live a normal life due to poor wages and conditions or little assistance for lifelong injuries. True loyalty is found by those that have been on operations and that is the people that have placed their lives in the hands of their fellow members.
The world revolves around power and money is power. How many times has a government sold out the sacrifice of their military people under the auspice of for "the greater good" meaning they keep the power and profits.
The question should not be about the rights or wrongs of comparatively lowly ranked officers selling their skills to a foreign power. It should be about those in government, politics, industry, business, education etc who facilitated the rise of China to the extent that those job offers can and have been made.
In my country our economy depends on China, our electrical grid depends on China, much prime agricultural land is owned by China, our university system depends on China. China has a 99 year lease on a strategically important northern port. We have graduated Chinese university students in all the disciplines necessary to build a strong aggressive military -nuclear, conventional, biological and cyber. Its seems that the Confucious institutes run our universities. We could not defend ourselves against even a moderate threat. No need for a military threat anyway, blockade the sea routes with submarines and shutdown our electricity grid, with no significant strategic fuel reserve we would be a basket case in a few weeks. We have Chinese police operating in the country, intimidating immigrants, from China, by threatening repercussions against family still resident in China. We, as a sovereign nation, are under threat to reform and respond to a 14 point demand, from China, before "normal' relations can resume. None of this is the result of comparatively low rank ex-military officers training Chinese fighter pilots.
Every citizen of our country has contributed, in some way to the rise of China and the threat to our country. The actions of a handful of comparatively low ranking fast jet, missile fodder, instructors is the least of our problems.
I will not be surprised if our iron ore exports, to China, are eventually returned, value added, as red hot steel.