02-04-2025
China accused of stealing British aircraft design
Solent-based Britten-Norman is now investigating the 'striking' similarities to see whether China has infringed its intellectual property rights over the Islander design.
Beijing's embassy in London has denied that either the design or the aircraft itself was stolen.
Alicia Kearns, the shadow national security minister, told The Telegraph: 'We outright condemn the shameless theft of the iconic British Islander aircraft design by a Chinese-state company, and the industrialised nature of intellectual property theft by the Chinese Communist Party.
'Global trade relies on respect for the rule of law. China's economic model is based on intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, state subsidy and the dumping of artificially cheap products to suffocate industries in the UK and those of allied economies.'
China's threat to Western prosperity has been confronted by British officials, albeit sluggishly.
In July 2022, the heads of the UK and US security services made an unprecedented joint public appearance to warn of the threat from Beijing.
MI5 chief Ken McCallum said at the time that his service had more than doubled its work against Chinese activity in the last three years and would be doubling it again.
'Take the threat from China seriously'
Ms Kearns added: 'The Labour Party claims to be the party of British workers. If this claim has any validity, they would do well to start taking the threat from China seriously, call out and act on this theft, and build on the protections we put in place across business and academia to stop the theft of British designs and products – including putting China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme (FIRS), which the Government failed to do again only yesterday.'
Labour has so far ignored calls to place China on the top level of the Government's new FIRS.
Tuesday saw Russia added to the scheme, joining the likes of Iran, but so far ministers have failed to place China on the 'enhanced' tier.
China's apparent targeting of the Islander aircraft represents a swipe at one of the crown jewels of the British aerospace industry.
Marketed as 'the world's most versatile aircraft', the Islander design was first drawn up in 1965 after Britten-Norman spotted a niche in the market for a light passenger and cargo transport aircraft.
It has been in continuous production for more than half a century, being bought by airlines and governments alike in more than 50 countries.
'We are investigating'
A spokesman for the British aircraft manufacturer said: 'Britten-Norman is aware of a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] currently undergoing testing that bears a striking resemblance to our BN-2T Islander aircraft, including unique design elements specific to our product.
'The Islander is a globally renowned, iconic airframe and this UAV does not have our endorsement.
'We have already developed and produced our own cargo variant and we are actively exploring autonomous capabilities.
'The situation raises concerns regarding potential misuse of our intellectual property, which we are investigating to determine if any rights have been violated and whether further action is required to protect the Islander's iconic design.'
'No solid evidence'
Kai Yan, a Chinese embassy spokesman, claimed there was no 'solid evidence' that Yi-Tong UAV System Co Ltd had stolen Britten-Norman's intellectual property or had tried to pass off a genuine Islander as its own product.
'The Chinese government is committed to protecting intellectual property rights. We are firmly against any allegations of IP infringement that are not based on solid evidence,' said Yan.
'Technological innovation in China has come a long way, a result of both the hard work of Chinese scientists and businesses and international collaboration.
'China's scientific and technological advancement cannot be held back by some groundless and unfair allegations.'
