ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A U.S. Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea encountered several Chinese military vessels in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, officials said.
The crew detected three vessels approximately 200 kilometers north of Amchitka Passage in the Aleutian Islands, the Coast Guard said in a statement Wednesday. A short time later, a helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak spotted a fourth vessel approximately 84 miles (135 kilometers) north of Amukta Passage.
All four ships from the People’s Republic of China were “transiting international waters but still within the US Exclusive Economic Zone,” which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) off the US coast, the statement said.
“The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” said Rear Admiral Megan Dean, commander of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District. “We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball is a 418-foot (127-meter) vessel based in Honolulu.
The Coast Guard did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for additional information from The Associated Press.
The sighting of the ships came a week after the Chinese navy began its annual joint patrol with the Russian navy in the Pacific Ocean, the US Naval Institute said on July 5. more than 10 ships from China and Russia formed a flotilla off Alaska.
In September 2022, the Kimball spotted several ships from China and Russia in the Bering Sea. And in September 2021, Coast Guard boats in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean encountered Chinese ships about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Aleutian Islands.
“Our military needs to be ready for increased Chinese and joint Chinese-Russian military activity near the coast of Alaska,” U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, said in a statement after being briefed on the Chinese presence.
“I also met yesterday morning with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and specifically raised this issue: how America must be much more prepared for the increased activity in the Arctic, and also to inform Alaskans that our military is on the job protecting our state and our country,” Sullivan said.
The U.S. military routinely conducts what it calls freedom of navigation operations in disputed waters in Asia that China claims as its own, deploying Navy ships to navigate waterways like the South China Sea. The US says freedom of navigation in the waters is at risk America’s national interest.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
