The United States has arrested and charged a former US Air Force fighter pilot for allegedly training China’s military, the Justice Department said on 26 February.

Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, a former F-35 Lightning II instructor pilot, was arrested on Wednesday in Jeffersonville, Indiana. He is charged with providing and conspiring to provide defence services to pilots from China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force.

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Brown previously commanded sensitive units responsible for nuclear weapons delivery systems. Prosecutors said he began negotiating a contract around August 2023 to train Chinese military pilots.

The Justice Department said he negotiated with Su Bin, a Chinese national who was sentenced in 2016 to four years in a US prison for conspiring to hack computer networks at Boeing and other major US defence contractors.

According to the department, Brown travelled to China in December 2023 and remained there until February before returning to the United States.

Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said Brown “betrayed his country by training Chinese pilots to fight against those he swore to protect”.

China’s embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The case comes as President Donald Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming weeks. Trump has sought to ease tensions in an ongoing trade dispute between the two countries.

At the same time, military and technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing has continued to grow. US and allied officials have warned that China has been recruiting current and former Western military personnel, including pilots, to help the People’s Liberation Army improve its air combat capabilities.

Officials say these efforts often involve lucrative contracts and offers to fly Chinese aircraft.

In 2023, the US Commerce Department sanctioned more than a dozen companies in China and other countries, including Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The sanctions were linked to efforts to recruit Western military personnel for Chinese aviation training.

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  Adapted by ASEAN Now · Source · 26 Feb 2026

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How could he ever think this was a good idea?

To my knowledge, China has never been declared an enemy of the US or engaged US forces in any act of war.

This guy's mistake is moving back to the Land of the Free not remaining in China as a foreign expert or relocating to another country to enjoy a peaceful retirement.

The US is nothing but a bully govt.

Is this a dejavue headline or has it taken this long to act on a xenophobically appealing accusation from some years back?

Does China have f_35's ? They do make some parts for under contract but that's the limit.

What do early retired military pilots do? Do they never become commercial airline pilots? Do they never work for non home country based airlines? Is there some mandated international law that says they can never train pilots in commercial airlines?

Should I shout objections and rush for the exists if the Flight Captain's accent does not match the national origins of the airline I am seated on?