Foreign Military Studies Office - Operational Environment Watch March 2013
“Japan Fears French Copter Device May Aid China’s Senkakus Campaign,” The Asahi Shimbun, 18 March 2013,
Http://Ajw.Asahi.Com/Article/Asia/China/AJ201303180096.
“Japan and France are at odds over a French company’s sales to China of a cutting-edge helicopter landing system that Japan fears will be deployed around the Senkaku Islands.
At issue is French defense contractor DCNS SA’s landing grid, which allows helicopters to land on or take off from a ship without crew assistance even in bad weather.
Japan expressed its concerns to France that the equipment will be used on Chinese ships intruding into Japanese waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, sources said.
… Japan has learned that the Chinese government signed a contract to purchase the equipment to install it on two marine surveillance ships by the end of the year, the sources said.
According to a government source, China will be able to make up for its pilots’ poor helicopter landing techniques with the system.
The government is worried that China could threaten Japan’s administration of the Senkaku Islands by strengthening its maritime activities with helicopters, which can monitor larger areas than marine surveillance ships.
Chinese government ships have repeatedly entered Japanese waters around the uninhabited islands since Japan put three of the islands under state ownership in September.
Some of these ships are capable of carrying helicopters, which some fear could be used to violate Japanese airspace or even help Chinese land on the islands…”