China Gets Combat Experience In Africa

July 20, 2012: China's Z-9WE helicopter gunship has finally gotten some combat experience. Kenya has been using its four Z-9WEs in southern Somalia for over six months. Kenya received the first two of these helicopters in 2010, and the second pair last year. The Z-9WEs have proved very useful in Somalia against the al Shabaab Islamic terrorists. That's probably why no one has mentioned that the Z-9WEs are a violation of the Western arms embargo against China (because of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre). The embargo against China is unpopular. European firms are particularly eager to drop the embargo and some, like France, are ignoring it. This is done by disregarding the installation of dual-use Western equipment in weapons systems. One example is the use of French Arriel 2C engines (built under license in China) for the Z-9WE combat helicopter.
The Arriel 2C engine is only supposed to be used for Chinese civilian helicopters and has been used for over 300 of them. Earlier models of the Z-9 used Chinese designed and built WZ8A engines. These were not satisfactory. So now China is advertising the use of Arriel 2C engines in its Z-9WE combat helicopters. 

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