整件事听起来像一部三流的惊险片，危言耸听，让人对中国获取西方技术的努力产生最糟糕的恐惧。
"剧情"是这样的，美国某家大公司的的一家子公司把利润置于全局性的道德之上，向中国出售敏感技术（用于控制直升机发动机的软件）。这样，中国航空航天工业就获取了一项此前不具备的决定性的军事能力：制造现代化的攻击直升机。
然而，这"剧情"并非出自编剧之手，而是在美国康涅狄格州布里奇波特的一家法庭上曝光的。美国最大国防承包商之一的一家子公司承认，非法向中国出口了中国新型直10(Z10)攻击直升机背后的关键技术。
美国联合技术公司(United Technologies Corporation)的一家子公司认罪后，美国司法部(DoJ)公布的文件，让我们看到了一幅兼具伊林喜剧和好莱坞电影元素的画面。整家公司涉足违法活动，似乎只是因为其加拿大航空发动机制造商——普惠加拿大公司(Pratt & Whitney Canada)几名员工的判断，他们不准确地断定，中国的直升机项目是一个军民两用项目。
法庭文件表明，让美国官方相信其内控机制在正常行使职能（联合技术公司在认罪协议中承诺强化内控机制），对于该公司的未来将有多么重要。
其中一份司法部文件称，"惠普加拿大在知情的情况下，对攻击直升机用途视而不见，而对一个'突然出现'的平行的民用项目的解释全盘接受，对于其存在与否，惠普加拿大本身曾有疑问，称其是'真实或者想象出来的'。"
惠普加拿大公司这么做的目的，是为了确保从加拿大政府拿到出口发动机和软件所需的许可证，确保联合技术公司的另一家子公司汉胜(Hamilton Sundstrand)会开发必要软件。
即便在惠普加拿大内部，中国项目的目的也曾引起极大困惑。当国有的中国航空工业集团公司(Avic)的项目负责人向普惠加拿大的一名工程师展示一款双座攻击直升机（而非他预想的12座运输型直升机）时，这名工程师感到震惊。
"还有10个座位在哪里？"他问道。
美国司法部文件称，"据这名工程师称，（中方）项目负责人对他的评论一笑置之。"
司法部表示，这些最终在法庭上曝光的事件，其核心是中国决心绕开国际武器禁运，获取现代化攻击直升机的相关技术。最初的努力失败后，中国航空工业集团公司从2000年开始向供应商表示，其正在推进的项目是军民两用的。
这一解释正中惠普加拿大销售人员的下怀，他们希望跻身中国民用直升机市场，欧洲竞争对手们已在那里占据领先地位。司法部在调查中发现惠普加拿大销售人员发给公司其他员工的几封电子邮件，讨论如何呈报该项目才能避免引起担忧。当时该公司的内部估计似乎表明，中国民用直升机市场有望在几年期间为其带来5亿至20亿美元的营收。
美国司法部的文件显示，普惠加拿大隐瞒该项目军事用途的企图，牵连到发动机控制软件供应商汉胜公司。普惠加拿大没有告诉汉胜为何需要改动软件。普惠加拿大明白，如果软件改动是出于军用目的，它将需要出口许可证。
这件事符合人们的总体印象，即普惠加拿大已下定决心承接这笔业务，而无论障碍有多大。见过军用版直升机的工程师向调查人员表示，尽管发现了军事用途，公司仍安排他继续从事这个直升机项目。甚至在汉胜对该项目产生怀疑，要求出示技术用途证明，并在2004年2月命令其员工终止合作之后，普惠加拿大仍继续参与该项目。
然而，一家投资者活动组织（法庭文件仅指认为"一家为投资者提供建议的非政府组织"）最终将该项目曝光。该组织在2006年2月联系了UTC的投资者关系部门，表达了对直10项目的担忧，这促使该公司向美国政府交待自己的参与情况。那份声明中的不实之处，导致了其中一些控罪。UTC至少会被处以总计5500万美元的罚款和没收，如果联邦政府官员不能确信它充分收紧了出口管制流程，罚款金额可能高达7500万美元。
与此同时，如果这起事件导致美国国防部将未来项目优先交给其它供应商，或者导致该公司更难获得出口许可证，UTC的损失可能更大。
或许更糟糕的是，普惠加拿大憧憬的大奖最终落空。美国司法部文件显示，中国从未生产民用版直10。当中国开始研发另一款载重量更大的民用直升机时，其设计如此不同，以至于普惠加拿大在2006年退出了供应发动机的竞争。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001045346
It sounds like a third-rate thriller designed to provoke alarmists' worst fears about China's efforts to exploit western technology.
An arm of a large US corporation, more focused on profit than wider ethics, sells sensitive technology – software to control helicopter engines – to China. China's aerospace industry then goes on to acquire a decisive military capability that it previously lacked: the ability to build modern attack helicopters.
Yet, rather than emerging from a scriptwriter, these events were described last Thursday in a courtroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as a subsidiary of one of the US's largest defence contractors pleaded guilty to illegally exporting vital technology behind China's new Z10 attack helicopter.
The documents that the US Department of Justice published after the guilty plea by a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporationnevertheless paint a picture that has elements of an Ealing comedy as well as a Hollywood film. The company as a whole appears to have stumbled into illegality through the determination of a few employees at Pratt & Whitney Canada, its Canadian aero-engine maker, to view the Chinese helicopter programme – inaccurately – as a joint civilian and military one.
The documents underline how crucial it will be for UTC's future to persuade the US authorities that its internal controls – which it promised under the plea agreement to reinforce – are functioning properly.
"P&WC knowingly turned a blind eye to the attack helicopter application and went along with the 'sudden appearance' of a parallel civil programme, the existence of which P&WC questioned as 'real or imagined'," one of the DoJ documents said.
The subsidiary did so to make sure it would secure the necessary export licences for the engines and software from Canada and that Hamilton Sundstrand, another of UTC's subsidiaries, would develop the necessary software.
Even within P&WC, confusion about the programme's purpose was so complete that one engineer was shocked when the programme's chief at China Aviation Industry Corporation, the state-owned Chinese aerospace company, showed him a two-seat attack helicopter, rather than the 12-seat transport craft he expected.
"Where are the other 10 seats?" the engineer asked.
"According to the engineer, the programme chief laughed off his comment," the DoJ documents report.
At the heart of the events that led to the courtroom, according to the Department of Justice, was China's determination, despite international arms embargoes, to secure technology for modern attack helicopters. After initially failing to secure the technology, Avic started in 2000 to tell suppliers the programme was a joint military and civilian one.
The explanation suited sales staff at P&WC who wanted a foothold in China's civil helicopter market, where European rivals were in the lead. The DoJ probe found several emails from P&WC sales staff to others in the organisation discussing how best to present the programme to avoid raising concerns. China's civil helicopter market was expected to provide $500m to $2bn of revenue for the company over several years, internal estimates suggested.
P&WC's effort to cover up the military aspects even, according to the DoJ, affected Hamilton Sundstrand, which supplied the engine control software. P&WC hid from Hamilton Sundstrand why it needed software modifications. P&WC knew that it would need an export licence if the software was modified for military ends.
That incident fits into the wider sense that P&WC had become determined to complete the work, no matter the obstacles. The engineer who saw the military version of the helicopter told investigators he was kept working on the helicopter, despite discovering its military purpose. P&WC pressed on with its involvement even after Hamilton Sundstrand, becoming suspicious about the programme, demanded certification of the technology's use and, in February 2004, ordered its staff to stop co-operating.
Yet an investor activist – identified only as "a non-governmental organisation offering advice to investors" – would, eventually, bring the scheme to light. The activist contacted UTC's investor relations department in February 2006 expressing concern about the Z10 and prompting the company to tell the US government of its involvement. Inaccuracies in that statement were the subject of some charges. The fines and forfeitures levied will total at least $55m and possibly as much as $75m if federal officials are unconvinced that UTC has tightened export controls sufficiently.
The company could lose still more money, meanwhile, if the Chinese incident leads the US defence department to award future work to other suppliers in preference – or if it has greater problems securing export licences.
It is a pill that may be harder to swallow because the prize P&WC was chasing turned out to be illusory. China has never proceeded with a civilian version of the Z10 helicopter, according to the DoJ documents. When China started developing another, heavier civilian design, it was so different that P&WC in 2006 withdrew from the competition to supply its engines.
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