US Coast Guard Detects Chinese Military Ships Near Alaska

A Coast Guard cutter Kimball crew-member observes a foreign vessel in the Bering Sea on Sept. 19, 2022. U.S. Coast Guard District 17 via AP

A U.S. Coast Guard ship on routine patrol in the Bering Sea spotted several Chinese military ships about 124 miles from the Alaskan coast, according to officials.

Three Chinese military vessels were detected north of Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, the Coast Guard said in a July 10 statement. A helicopter crew operated by the Coast Guard spotted a fourth vessel some 84 miles north of Amukta Pass, located between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean.

Rear Adm. Megan Dean, 17th Coast Guard District commander, said that the Chinese vessels were “transiting in international waters but still inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone,” which extends 200 nautical miles from the U.S. coast, according to the Coast Guard statement.

She said the vessels “operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” and that U.S. forces “met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”

The vessels responded to radio communication and stated that their purpose was “freedom of navigation operations,” according to the Coast Guard statement.

The Coast Guard cutter Kimball monitored the four ships as they moved south of the Aleutian Islands into the North Pacific Ocean, officials said.

The USCGC Kimball, a 418-foot-long “national security cutter,” is continuing to “monitor activities in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone to ensure the safety of U.S. vessels and international commerce in the area,” following the detection of the four ships, the Coast Guard said.

The statement stressed that the Coast Guard was “fully aware of” the Chinese naval vessels, noting that Coast Guard ships in September 2021 and September 2022 detected “Chinese surface action groups” near the Bering Sea, a body of water that separates Alaska and Russia.

In the September 2022 incident, the USCGC Kimball spotted a guided missile cruiser from China in the Bering Sea. In 2021, Coast Guard cutters in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean encountered Chinese ships about 50 miles from the Aleutian Islands.

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 sail through waterways such as the South China Sea. The United States has previously said that freedom of navigation in the waters is in America’s national interest and the national interest of its allies.

Last year, the U.S. deployed four Navy ships after Russian and Chinese naval forces conducted joint patrols near Alaska, officials said. At the time, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that a total of 11 Chinese and Russian ships were operating near the Aleutian Islands and that four U.S. Navy destroyers responded.

About a month after that incident, a top U.S. Army general in the Pacific, Charles Flynn, told the annual Maneuver Warfighter Conference that the Chinese communist regime would likely make a significant military move in the next decade or so.

“This century is going to be defined by what actually happens in the Indo-Pacific and Asia. It is the most consequential region at the most consequential time, and it has the most consequential adversary that has both the capability and the will, and it demonstrates it every single day to conduct operations to counter the United States… and what a free and open Indo Pacific represents to the world,” Gen. Flynn said, as reported by the Army Times.

The Chinese Community Party has yet to comment publicly on the U.S. Coast Guard’s July 10 statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.