Appleton - Oshkosh Truck Corp. plans to open a sales office in Beijing this spring, company officials said at the annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday.

The maker of heavy trucks wants to sell more fire and rescue vehicles in China, which also could be a lucrative market for cement mixers and refuse trucks.

Oshkosh Truck has spent millions of dollars to expand its Wisconsin plants. The company is worried about its products being unlawfully copied in China.

"We are going to be cautious and build everything here," said company Chairman Robert Bohn.

"One day, if there's enough volume and we find the right partner, we may do some manufacturing" in China, he added.

Oshkosh Truck has sold fire and rescue vehicles to the Chinese for years. There haven't been many sales, but that could change with China's voracious appetite for growth and development.

Oshkosh Truck is flush with U.S. Department of Defense business from the war in Iraq. The company has estimated its defense business at more than $1.2 billion for fiscal 2006, as the level of government funding looks good for both sales of military vehicles and rebuilding vehicles damaged in the war.

"There's plenty of work for us," Bohn said, adding that Oshkosh Truck was rebuilding vehicles damaged in the Gulf War six years after the war ended.

Emergency vehicle sales through the homeland security business remain strong, and the company's commercial-vehicle division has started to show profits.

Overall commercial division sales were up nearly 20%, to $1 billion, in 2005. But operating income was down nearly 32%, to $23.8 million, because of higher-than-expected steel prices and an $8.6 million operating loss at Geesink Norba Group.