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According to the contract, the company agreed in 2000 to sell 10 engines to China for the purpose of developing a 6-ton class civilian helicopter. However, China secretly changed the plan and installed the engines in their Z-10 attack helicopters, without notifying the Canadian side. Pratt & Whitney's business transaction was therefore not in violation of international law; rather it was the Chinese side that misrepresented the intended use of the engines.
Following the process through which China upgraded its Z-9W/G helicopter to the Z-10 armed helicopter demonstrates the country's tactics in acquiring military technologies. The first step was to establish contacts with foreign manufacturers, through all possible channels. Traces of China's efforts to obtain technologies related to the Z-10 can be found in Russia, South Africa and Italy.
Through a series of contacts and talks, China acquired information on the design features of different types of combat helicopters. It then conducted a detailed analysis of all this technical information, aimed at identifying the best features, as well as the weak points, of each type of aircraft.
The next step was to build an imitation of the foreign system. During this stage, a number of technical difficulties were encountered. When that happened, Chinese engineers would return to the target country and express an intention to cooperate further with the manufacturer.
It is not uncommon for the Chinese to reappear and re-open discussions with a previous contact even several years after their initial enquiries about a specific technology. For instance, in the course of developing the Z-10, Chinese engineers continually sought technical support from the South African company Denel from the mid-1990s to 1999.
At this stage, Western manufacturers might easily begin to doubt the sincerity of the Chinese intent to purchase their equipment, and would no longer exhibit their initial enthusiasm for a deal. The Chinese side would then request a "technology transfer." They would seek information on a specific technology or simply purchase the technology. In the case of Denel, China proposed to purchase one Rooivalk attack helicopter.
"Requests by the Chinese are sometimes very interesting," said one technician at a Western helicopter manufacturer. "Their core concern is technological transfer, not direct purchase from us." The difficulty in cooperating with China, he said, lay in that the engineers often asked for explanations of helicopter technologies without completing any business deal.
"They never tell us what type of difficulties they have encountered in the process of developing their own helicopters, or what kind of help they really need. In other words, they tend to keep a lot of things secret. This doesn't mean we want to know their secrets. But in the course of cooperation, if we do not know the overall status of their program, it would be difficult to provide effective technical information," he added.
China imported engines for its Z-9 armed helicopters in the 1980s and, more recently, the Arriel 2C engine, under agreements that allowed total or partial technology transfers, to allow them to build their own aircraft.
When there were choices between Russian, Ukrainian and Western products available in such areas as helicopter power plants, China would usually give priority consideration to Western products. In the final stage of product development, China would turn to the Western company for technical support on any knotty problems of design or technology.
The Italian AgustaWestland Company claims that it played a part in the development of China's Z-10 attack helicopter. This most likely refers to the provision of design information concerning some of the aircraft's subsystems during a certain stage of the project.
Judging from its longstanding practices in acquiring foreign technology for military purposes, it is no surprise that the Chinese did not inform Pratt & Whitney of the intended use of their PT6C-67C engines. Where is the Chinese 6-ton civilian helicopter? Ten years have passed since its supposed development began, but it has not appeared yet.
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(Andrei Chang is editor-in-chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, registered in Toronto, Canada.)
