China's bid to become a high-tech powerhouse that innovates, rather than just the world's workshop, have seen it accused of stealing everything from train designs to fighter jet systems to auto components.

Renault's number two Patrick Pelata was quoted by Le Monde on Friday saying the company was targeted by a bid to obtain information on its electric car programme.

Another French media report said the alleged buyers of the secrets were Chinese, although that has not yet been officially confirmed.

Officials at China's ministry of industry and information technology, and the commerce ministry declined immediate comment on the reports when contacted by AFP on Monday.

But if the allegations of Chinese involvement prove to be true, it should come as little surprise, said R.S. Vasan, a security expert at the Centre for Asia Studies in Chennai, India.

It is essentially China's state policy to "beg, borrow or steal whatever it needs to improve its position in the world," Vasan told AFP.

"We do know that China uses various agencies and entities to obtain certain secrets and then reverse engineer the technologies. They have gotten very good at that. For them, it is not the means that is important but the ends."

China openly requires technology transfers from many foreign firms doing business in the country, but has also frequently been the target of regular allegations of trying to obtain an edge by underhanded means.

Perhaps the most high-profile example was Internet giant Google's charge in early 2010 that it had faced a cyberattack believed to have originated in China that resulted in the "theft of intellectual property".

The incident led Google to reduce its presence in China. Dozens of other US companies were also reportedly targeted in similar attacks believed aimed in part at obtaining trade secrets.

In 2009, the head of French rail firm Alstom Transport said Chinese companies were exporting trains using technology provided by Western firms that was never intended to be used outside China.

Russia in 2008 reportedly threatened to sue China for copying its Sukhoi Su-27SK fighters and selling the Chinese-made jets to other countries at cut prices.

Several other alleged conspiracies to funnel secrets from top firms in the United States and elsewhere have come to light in recent years, but China systematically rejects any such allegations as groundless.

China's leaders have pursued a recent campaign to help Beijing catch up after decades of war, revolution and disastrous Communist policies left the country far beyond the rest of the world in technical abilities.

In the 1980s, China established the 863 programme, a bid to spur development of homegrown technologies, but the effort has faced allegations of helping fund the acquisition of foreign secrets via clandestine means.

In a 2009 report, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, established by Congress, called Chinese espionage the "single greatest threat to US technology."

It said rapid advancements in China's military weapons systems were likely due in part to espionage, adding that Chinese industrial spying "is providing a source of new technology without the necessity of investing time or money to perform research."

"This illicit activity both from traditional techniques and computer-based activity are possibly contributing to China's military modernisation and its acquisition of new technical capabilities," the report said.

Roger Faligot, an expert on Chinese espionage, said Chinese intelligence is particularly interested in the auto industry and that its major car companies work closely with the secret service.

"The major Chinese businesses have big research and development budgets, part of which is used to get information, with substantial budgets to buy people," Faligot told AFP.

Vasan said reported Chinese involvement in the Renault case would seem to fit with China's strategy of becoming a leader in green technology, a policy set for reasons of energy security and pollution reduction.

"Everybody knows they want these cars. This is an important sector for China, so I would not be surprised at all if these allegations were found to be true," he said.

earlier related report
Nissan says confident in Renault's handling of spy ring
Detroit, Michigan (AFP) Jan 9, 2011 - Nissan has confidence in how Renault is handling an international spy ring's attempt to steal secrets about their shared electric car program, a top executive said Sunday.

"Our partner is very focused on making sure they understand what went wrong," said Carlos Tavares, chairman of Nissan's Americas division.

"We at Nissan trust that our partner Renault will do the right thing to fix it."

French automaker Renault has suspended three top managers for allegedly leaking secrets about its electric car program to China.

Renault number two Patrick Pelata told Saturday's Le Monde daily that "no nugget of technological or strategic information" were stolen by the "professional" spy ring, but said details of the design and costs of the vehicles could have been leaked.

Tavares said it was "premature to comment on what is being investigated" but acknowledged the incident was troubling.

"It makes us even more sensitive to what could happen anywhere," he told reporters on the sidelines of the SAA Automotive Outlook conference in Detroit, Michigan.

"Nissan has its own policy to make sure that we protect all the assets we're supposed to protect," he added.

"Of course we are cautious and we take into consideration everything we learn and what may have happened at Renault."

While any incident of industrial espionage is troubling and could give a competitor an unfair advantage, Nissan's the electric vehicle program is at a less sensitive stage now that the all-electric Leaf is available to buyers.

"Any technology that can give a company leadership in its own market - it's very sensitive by definition," Tavares said.

"But in the case of Nissan, our technology is already in the hands of our customers because we are already in the market."

Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan have staked their future on electric vehicles and plan to launch several models by 2014 to meet the rapidly rising demand for more environmentally-friendly methods of transport.

They have invested four billion euros (5.2 billion dollars) in the program.

Tavares said he welcomed rival Ford's announcement Friday that it plans to begin selling an all-electric Focus late this year in North America.

"Welcome to the club," he said, noting that the move by Ford helps put to rest the argument that fully electric cars can't compete with range-extended plug-in hybrids.

"We are extremely happy to have competitors in full electric," he said. "It's good for society, it's good for the industry, it's good for the energy management, it's good to speed up the development of the technology, it's good for everybody."

Nissan will benefit significantly from the fact that it was the first major automaker to bring an electric car to the key US market.

"As we have seen in other situations, when you bring an innovation with a specific technology the benefit of the leader is much higher than what the followers gain," he said.

The Leaf also benefits from the fact that it is an "extremely mature product" and a "real car where there are no tradeoffs."

Nissan began selling the Leaf in the United States and Japan last month and will introduce it to Europe later this yea.

It has already sold out the 20,000 Leafs designated for the US market this year. While the early models will be built in Japan, Nissan is expanding operations at its Tennessee plant which will have an annual capacity of 150,000 Leafs and 200,000 battery packs by 2013.

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