Reports indicate that Chinese authorities have obtained F-35 stealth fighter components after parts of the jet were mysteriously rerouted to Hong Kong.

In late May, UPS was transporting a cockpit canopy and a weapons bay door from Australia to the United States when the shipment was diverted, according to Bloomberg, which cited sources.

The sources noted that both components were coated with radar-absorbent material to improve stealth, and they could not explain why the shipment ended up in Hong Kong.

On Tuesday, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles informed reporters that Australia knew about the shipment and was collaborating with the United States and Lockheed Martin to determine how Canberra could help with the investigation.

Marles added that, to his knowledge, the missing shipment did not contain any sensitive components, as reported by CNN.

Lockheed Martin, UPS, and the Pentagon did not immediately reply to requests for comment from Verum.

The F-35, a fifth‑generation stealth jet produced by Lockheed Martin, is sold by the United States only to its closest allies and partners.

Turkey, for instance, was barred from the F‑35 programme in 2019 after acquiring Russia’s S‑400 air‑defence system, sparking concerns that the S‑400 could be exploited to gather intelligence on the jet’s capabilities.

U.S. prosecutors said in 2024 that China has previously sought F‑35‑related American military data in espionage cases.

Last week, a $24 billion deal to sell F‑35s to Saudi Arabia was cleared, yet several members of Congress have warned that the technology could end up in China’s possession.

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D‑IL) noted that the U.S. intelligence community cautioned that the sale “might place the crown jewels of American military technology within reach of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The fighter jet is operated by Australia, Belgium and the United States, while Japan, Canada and Singapore have also placed orders for the aircraft.

The United States has also deployed F‑35s in the Iran conflict, during which one jet sustained damage from enemy fire, the Department of Defense reported.

Your Privacy

On this platform, we and our vendors employ cookies and similar tools (“Cookies”) to store and retrieve information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and browser type. Your data may be utilized to save and communicate your privacy preferences; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and service development; so we can enhance our services and create new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can modify your choices anytime through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also employ other Cookies essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

These Cookies and SDKs are required for Service functionality, including security and fraud prevention, and to enable any purchasing capabilities. You can set your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some parts of the site may not function properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.

– Use limited data to select advertising 791 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).

– Create profiles for personalised advertising 637 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

– Use profiles to select personalised advertising 640 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalise content 261 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.

– Use profiles to select personalised content 234 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.

– Measure advertising performance 916 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.

– Measure content performance 405 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.

– Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 579 partners can use this purpose Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

– Develop and improve services 688 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

– Use limited data to select content 180 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).

These Cookies and SDKs are used to collect data about your browsing habits, use of the Services, your preferences, and your interaction with advertisements across platforms and devices for the purpose of delivering targeted advertising content, both on our Services and on third party sites. Third-party sites and services also use Targeting Cookies to deliver content, including advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services. If you reject these Cookies or SDKs, you will see less relevant advertising.

Data collected under this category through Cookies and SDKs can also be used to select and deliver personalized content, such as news articles and videos.

Your Privacy

On this platform, we and our vendors employ cookies and similar technologies (“Cookies”) to store and retrieve information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP addresses, and browser types. Your data may be utilized to preserve and communicate your privacy preferences; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; measure advertising and content performance; conduct audience research and service development; improve our services and create new ones; match and combine offline data with your online activity; and enable social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can modify your choices anytime via the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also employ other Cookies essential to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy for further details.

These Cookies and SDKs are necessary for Service functionality, including security, fraud prevention, and enabling purchasing capabilities. You can configure your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some site features may not work properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and communicated to those entities as digital signals (such as character strings). This is required to allow both this service and those entities to honor such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor and prevent unusual and potentially fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, bot ad clicks), and ensure systems and processes operate properly and securely. It can also resolve issues you, the publisher, or the advertiser may encounter in content and ad delivery and your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) ensures technical compatibility of content or advertising and facilitates transmission to your device.

Cookies, device identifiers, or similar online identifiers (e.g., login-based, randomly assigned, or network-based identifiers) along with other information (e.g., browser type, language, screen size, supported technologies) can be stored or read on your device to recognize it each time it connects to an app or website, for one or more of the purposes outlined here.

– Use limited data to select advertising: 791 partners can use this purpose. Ads shown to you can be based on limited data such as the website or app you’re using, your non-precise location, device type, or content interactions (e.g., to limit ad frequency).

– Create profiles for personalized advertising: 637 partners can use this purpose. Your activity on this service (forms submitted, content viewed) can be stored and combined with other information about you (previous activity on this service or other sites/apps) or similar users to build or improve a profile about you (including possible interests and personal aspects). This profile can be used to present more relevant advertising.

– Use profiles to select personalized advertising: 640 partners can use this purpose. Ads can be based on your advertising profiles reflecting your activity on this or other services, possible interests, and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalize content: 261 partners can use this purpose. Your activity (forms submitted, non-ad content viewed) can be stored and combined with other data to build a profile for presenting more relevant content, such as adapting content order.

– Use profiles to select personalized content: 234 partners can use this purpose. Content can be based on your content personalization profiles reflecting your activity, possible interests, and personal aspects.

– Measure advertising performance: 916 partners can use this purpose. Data on which ads you see and how you interact helps determine ad effectiveness (e.g., whether you saw, clicked, or acted on an ad).

– Measure content performance: 405 partners can use this purpose. Data on content presented and your interaction helps determine if non-ad content reached its audience and matched interests (e.g., article reads, video watches, time spent).

– Understand audiences through statistics or combined data: 579 partners can use this purpose. Reports from combined datasets (user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics) identify common characteristics to determine receptive audiences.

– Develop and improve services: 688 partners can use this purpose. Your activity data helps improve products and services and build new ones based on user interactions and audience type, excluding profile/identifier development.

– Use limited data to select content: 180 partners can use this purpose. Content can be based on limited data like the site/app used, non-precise location, device type, or content interactions (e.g., to limit article/video frequency).

These Cookies and SDKs collect data about your browsing habits, service usage, preferences, and ad interactions across platforms and devices to deliver targeted advertising on our Services and third-party sites. Third parties also use Targeting Cookies to deliver relevant content and ads. If you reject these, you’ll see less relevant advertising.

Data collected via these Cookies and SDKs can also select and deliver personalized content like news articles and videos.