UK Defence Journal:
It has been claimed that Chinese officers who attended an RAF training course spent much of their free time ‘spying’ on RAF Fylingdales, a radar base part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.
Lt G Huang and Capt S Tong reportedly made many two hour trips from Royal Air Force College in Cranwell, Lincolnshire, to RAF Fylingdales, in Yorkshire.
The RAF have now confirmed that two officers in question were in the UK to complete the basic Initial Officer Training, a course with 102 cadets from the Philippines, Jordan, Ukraine and China.
The Chinese officers that completed the course were at the very start of their military training and the Ministry of Defence claim they did not receive access to sensitive information or any classified areas.
This comes after the Strategic Defence and Security Review UK set out plans to invest in a ground-based ballistic missile defence radars and also investigate the potential of the Type 45 Destroyers to operate in a ballistic missile defence role.
The UK’s current and only ballistic missile defence radar is at RAF Fylingdales, speculation suggests that either a site in the UK or Cyprus will house a new system.
