Four Chinese Warships Spotted Off Alaska's Aleutian Islands

Who controls Alaska controls the Pacific, at least north of the Equator. General Billy Mitchell, before World War 2, described Alaska as "The most important strategic place in the world," and it seems China (and Russia) agree with him. In the latest move by the Middle Kingdom, they have sent warships once again to trail their coats down the Alaskan coast — although it's not as dire as one might think.

Multiple Chinese military ships were spotted by the U.S. Coast Guard in the waters off Alaska, officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
Three vessels were detected about 124 miles north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, and a fourth ship was spotted about 84 miles north of the state's Amukta Pass. The ships were seen on Saturday and Sunday.
All four ships were in international waters, the Coast Guard said, but were inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the U.S. shoreline. In these areas, the United States has exclusive rights for exploring and using marine resources.
All four ships "operated in accordance with international rules and norms," according to Rear Admiral Megan Dean, the Coast Guard district commander.

These locations are far out in the Aleutians, with Amchitka Pass being situated between the Rat Islands to the west and the Delarof Islands to the east, and Amukta Pass lies to the east of the larger islands of Adak and Atka, between Amukta Island and Seguam Island. These are small passages between some small, cold, rainy spots in the far Aleutians, so it's not as though the Chinese ships were parked in Cook inlet looking into downtown Anchorage with binoculars.

While the Chinese ships didn't break any international conventions nor commit any aggressive acts, their presence in the Aleutians is still, in the sense of the ancient Chinese proverb, interesting, given China's increasing bellicosity in the western Pacific.

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The Chinese ships, when challenged by the Coast Guard, gave a reason for their presence that would be very familiar to American sailors.

When contacted by the Coast Guard to "ensure there were no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska," the Chinese vessels said that they were in the area for "freedom of navigation operations," Dean said.
The naval presence was tracked by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball, a 418-foot-long national security vessel that has previously conducted joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. The cutter is in the area as part of Operation Frontier Sentinel, a Coast Guard exercise "designed to meet presence with presence when strategic competitors operate in and around U.S. waters," according to the agency.

While there's no indication that anything untoward was going on — this time — there may well be reasons for China scoping out the Aleutians.

Alaska is, as I have written, the crown of the Pacific. If China ever wants to expand its hold on the Pacific, American forces in Alaska stand in the way. While few of those forces are in the Aleutians, those remote islands could very well serve as a springboard for an aggressive move against the main part of the 49th state. Granted, this would be an extremely difficult move for China to pull off, but it's not as though they would have to invade and conquer Alaska to put the military forces there in a difficult spot; simply closing the port at Anchorage and the pipeline terminus at Valdez would go a long way towards reducing the possible impact of the American forces in Alaska.

And such a move would be preceded by, yes, reconnaissance in the Aleutians.

There's no direct evidence that this is what China is up to. But it would make sense, from their point of view, to know their way around that part of the world.