At the Beijing motor show last November, officials of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Company saw what they describe as a "shocking" scene.
在他们眼里，中国汽车制造商们展示的一些新车型--例如辽宁曙光汽车集团(SG Automotive)的"旗胜"和天马汽车集团(Tianma Auto)的"英雄"--看上去与现代的圣达菲(Santa Fe)和下属企业起亚汽车(Kia Motors)的索兰托(Sorento)很相似。
To their eyes, some of the new models displayed by Chinese carmakers - such as the Qisheng by Liaoning SG Automotive and the Yingxiong by Tianma Auto - looked similar to Hyundai's Santa Fe and its affiliate Kia Motors' Sorento.
现代汽车的管理人员Jake Jang回忆道："当我们看到中国的展车时，我们认为那是一模一样的复制品。前后外饰看上去与我们的运动型多功能汽车(SUV)非常相似。"
"The moment we saw the Chinese models, we thought they were replicas. The front and rear exteriors looked so similar to our sports utility vehicles," recalls Jake Jang, a Hyundai official.
中国汽车制造商否认了现代的指控。辽宁曙光汽车集团的管理人员高彦龙(音译)表示："现代汽车工作人员对我们的旗胜车型发表的言论毫无根据，我们自己造出了这些汽车。"天马汽车发表的言论同样直接，一位管理人员表示："我们无需对现代汽车方面的言论进行任何回复。他们怎么想是他们的自由。但我可以告诉你，我们的英雄车型完全是自主开发的。我们还向政府注册了相关的专利。"
The Chinese carmakers reject Hyundai's accusation. "What the people at Hyundai said about our Qisheng is completely groundless. We made the vehicles ourselves," says Gao Yanlong, an official at Liaoning. Tianma was equally blunt. "We don't need to make any response to the comments by Hyundai. It is their freedom to think that way. But I can tell you, our Yingxiong is fully self-developed. We also registered its related patents with the government," an official says.
然而，现代汽车的高管回到韩国后，越来越担心中国竞争对手正在科技和设计方面缩小与韩国的差距，对该公司而言，这种发展可能是灾难性的。
Still, Hyundai executives returned home with growing fears that their Chinese rivals are closing the technological and design gap with South Korea - a development that could be disastrous for the company.
上月，起亚汽车发生了部分工人因涉嫌向中国出售汽车技术而被捕的事情，突显出韩国汽车业的这种危机感。他们被指控盗窃了索兰托以及一款将于12月推出的新车型的关键信息。目前尚不清楚是谁涉嫌购买了这些技术。
The sense of crisis in South Korea's automotive industry was heightened last month when it emerged that some of Kia's workers had been arrested for allegedly selling car technology to China. They?were accused of stealing crucial information on the Sorento and a new model that will be launched in December. It is not known who the alleged buyers of the technology were.
"尽管我们在成本方面相对较弱，但我们认为，我们在质量和科技方面领先中国，"韩国商工会议所(Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry)的Kim Hyun-soo表示，"但是，当技术外泄可能使中国迅速追赶我们的优势时，这种信心受到了动摇。"
"We believe that we are ahead of China on quality and technology, although we are relatively weak on the cost side," says Kim Hyun-soo at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "But the belief is being shaken as technology leaks may allow China to quickly catch up on our strengths."
对中国制造商可能迅速赶上的担忧，已在许多实业家和立法者中间造成了一种被围攻的感觉--尽管韩国自己也是通过复制日本和美国的技术（至少在其发展初期是这样），成长为世界第11大经济体的。
The fear that Chinese manufacturers are fast catching up has generated a sense of siege among many industrialists and lawmakers, even though South Korea itself grew into the world's 11th largest economy by replicating Japanese and US technology, at least in its initial development stage.
韩国国家情报局(National Intelligence Service)表示，在2003年至2007年5月间，共查获了101起工业间谍案，据称这些案件为国家带来的潜在损失高达1435亿美元。上月，检察部门逮捕了浦项制铁(Posco)子公司Posdata的研究员，原因是其涉嫌试图将韩国开发的无线宽带技术Wibro走私到美国。
The National Intelligence Service says it identified 101 cases of industrial espionage between 2003 and May 2007, which it claims cost the country $143.5bn (�106bn, ￡72bn) in potential losses. Last month prosecutors arrested researchers at Posdata, an affiliate of Posco, the steelmaker, for allegedly attempting to smuggle Wibro - a wireless broadband technology developed by Korea - into the US.
