US coastguard spots Chinese naval ships off Alaska island

A US coastguard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea came across several Chinese military ships in international waters but within the US exclusive economic zone, officials said.

The crew detected three vessels around 200km (124 miles) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, the coastguard said in a statement on Wednesday.

A short time later, a helicopter aircrew from Coastguard Air Station Kodiak spotted a fourth ship around 135km (84 miles) north of the Amukta Pass.

All four of the vessels were “transiting in international waters but still inside the US exclusive economic zone”, which extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from the US shoreline, the statement said.

“The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” said Rear Admiral Megan Dean, Seventeenth Coast Guard District commander. “We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”

US coastguard Cutter Kimball is a 127-metre (418-foot) ship based in Honolulu.

The coastguard did not respond to questions about how long the Chinese ships were in the exclusive economic zone but said the Kimball and an air crew monitored them until they transited south of the Aleutian Islands and into the North Pacific Ocean.

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 the patrol is scaled down from previous years, including last August when 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, coastguard cutters in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean encountered Chinese ships about 80km (50 miles) off the Aleutian Islands.

“Our military needs to be ready for increasing Chinese, and joint Chinese and Russian military activity near Alaska’s coast,” US Senator 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 increasing activity in the Arctic, and to also let Alaskans know that our military is on the job protecting our state and our country,” Sullivan said.

The US 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 US says freedom of navigation in the waters is in America’s national interest.