Aircraft deal

In a deal that could strain Sino-European ties, Airbus sister company Eurocopter has announced it is to sell three helicopters to Taiwan in a deal worth around 80 million euros ($110 million).

Taiwanese military officials said the deal with Eurocopter - a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) - was finalized in January. The helicopters are due to be delivered by the end of 2011.

"We invited international tenders. The Eurocopter Group won the bid because its price was lower than our bottom price," Air Force press officer Yin Shih-hsien told DPA news agency.

Beijing has so far offered a muted response to the Eurocopter deal, which involves three EC225 long-range transport helicopters, saying it understood the aircraft were intended for rescue missions.

"We will continue to watch this issue closely, in particular the use of these helicopters," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in an official statement.

The procurement follows an agreement between the US and Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway province, for $6.4 billion worth of military equipment. China has since threatened sanctions against US firms involved in the deal, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

The Eurocopter deal marks only the third European arms sale to Taiwan in the last 40 years, due mainly to political sensitivity over China-Taiwan relations. Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when nationalists fled to the island at the conclusion of the Chinese civil war.

A Dutch deal in the 1970s for two submarines ended in Beijing downgrading diplomatic ties with the Netherlands. More recently, in 1993, China closed the French consulate in southern Guangdong province after Paris sought to sell Taiwan advance fighter jets.

dfm/AFP/Reuters/dpa

Editor: Nancy Isenson