China enters Arctic Ocean for the first time

By Simone McCarthy, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) — China’s Coast Guard claimed it entered waters of the Arctic Ocean for the first time as part of a joint patrol with Russia – in the latest sign of enhanced coordination between the two in a region where Beijing has long wished to expand its footprint.

The statement came a day after the US Coast Guard said it spotted four vessels from the Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard in the Bering Sea – the “northernmost” location it said it had ever observed the Chinese ships.

The joint patrol “effectively expanded the scope of the Coast Guard’s ocean-going navigation” and tested their ability “to carry out missions in unfamiliar waters,” the China Coast Guard (CCG) said in a post on its official social media account Wednesday.

The CCG did not release the exact location of the patrol. A banner visible on one of the vessels in accompanying photos read “China Coast Guard devoting its heart to the Party; demonstrating loyalty in the Arctic Ocean,” referring to China’s ruling Communist Party.

The Russian government has not officially acknowledged the patrol, which Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said took place “a few days ago.” Russian state media TASS published a report on the patrol, citing the CCG statement.

The US Coast Guard (USCG) on Monday said it spotted the four vessels from the Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard “transiting in formation in a northeast direction” in the Bering Sea, some five miles inside Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone on Saturday.

The Bering Sea stretches between Russia and Alaska and is part of the North Pacific Ocean. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait, a narrow passage separating Asia and North America.

“This recent activity demonstrates the increased interest in the Arctic by our strategic competitors,” Rear Adm. Megan Dean, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District, said in the USCG statement.

The US has raised concerns about China’s growing role and coordination with Russia in the strategically and environmentally sensitive Arctic region, as the two countries tighten their security and economic ties more broadly.

US and Canadian forces in July intercepted Russian and Chinese bombers flying together near Alaska for the first time, while their two navies operated together in international waters off the Alaskan coast in 2022 and 2023, according to the US military.

Last year, CCG and Russia’s Federal Security Service, which operates its coast guard, agreed to strengthen their “maritime law enforcement cooperation” and China was invited to observe Russia’s “Arctic Patrol-2023” security drills.

Analysts say the new patrol is part of a broader pattern of collaboration – and designed to send a message to Washington, whose maritime activities in the South and East China Seas have longed irked Beijing.

“The significance of the (China) Coast Guard operating farther north than it has ever done implies (China) is extending its Coast Guard into areas the US has traditionally considered its own domain,” said Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

“China in particular is signaling that the US Coast Guard is not the only one that (can) operate within and near other countries’ Economic Exclusion Zones from their own home waters,” he said.

Arctic ambitions

Beijing has for years sought to increase its footprint in the Arctic, declaring itself a “near Arctic state” and beefing up its icebreaker and research capabilities in the region, where it’s also heavily invested in Russian energy projects.

Russia, as one of eight Arctic states, has historically been wary of being too welcoming to China in a region key to its own security and military power.

But observers say Moscow’s increasing reliance on China – its most important diplomatic and economic partner – in the wake of its war on Ukraine may be changing that calculus.

In its first update to its Arctic strategy in five years, the US Department of Defense in July warned that “growing cooperation” between Russia and China in the region has the “potential to alter the Arctic’s stability and threat picture.”

The recent joint activities, including the July patrol near Alaska, raise questions of whether Russia’s focus on controlling access to the Russian Arctic is “increasingly overshadowed by economic and political considerations,” said Sophie Arts, a fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the US’s Geostrategy North team.

“However, when it comes to growing Russian willingness to cater to Chinese interests, we have to take into account the location in which these activities are taking place,” she added, pointing to how the strategically peripheral patrol location suggests “Russian concerns about controlling access and maintaining its bastion (of) defense remain a priority.”

Andreas Østhagen, a senior researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway, expressed skepticism that Chinese vessels had operated in the Arctic Ocean proper.

He said that operating north of the Bering Strait normally requires ice-breaking capabilities and noted that the US Coast Guard did not report the ships entered the Bering Strait, where the Arctic Ocean starts. CNN has reached out to the USCG for comment.

“It still links to the wider Arctic region, even if this is not the Arctic Ocean. Operating off the coast of Alaska or in the Bering Sea at large is part of an ongoing trend where China is asserting its ability to be present in the Arctic, or near the Arctic,” he said.

Economic interests

The China Coast Guard is part of the country’s People’s Armed Police, which is under the command of the Central Military Commission – and it has frequently been at the frontline of China’s efforts to assert its territorial claims in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

The Philippines, for example, has repeatedly accused the CCG of targeting its fishing and other ships with water canons and other tactics, including in what it described as a “brutal assault” with bladed weapons on Filipino forces in June.

In addition to projecting strength, Beijing has a practical interest in expanding its cooperation with Russia and presence in far north waters, where its coast guard could in the future protect its economic interests, experts say.

In its 2018 Arctic policy, Beijing described its vision for a “Polar Silk Road,” linking Asia to Europe by developing shipping routes like the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic and down to China. That route, now largely navigable only in summer and autumn, is expected to become more commercially viable for global shipping as climate change melts sea ice.

Transit along the Northern Sea Route during the summer-autumn navigation season is poised to hit record levels of transit cargo by the season’s end, according to data from the Centre for High North Logistics affiliated with Norway’s Nord University. As of September 30, about 95% of the cargo volume along the route went from Russia to China, it said in a recent report.

The coast guard collaboration “relates to Chinese interests in maritime transportation along at least parts of the Northern Sea Route,” according to Østhagen. “The fact that they have initiated these types of operations is yet another step in the ongoing practical cooperation between the two states in an Arctic or near-Arctic context.”

And when taken alongside other recent joint operations, “this is all about expanding both the Chinese footprint in this part of the Arctic and China’s abilities to operate this far north,” he said.

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