Alaska Coast Guard tracks Chinese, Russian vessels in Bering Sea

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Four Russian and Chinese security ships were tracked by the Coast Guard in a sign of increased activity by key U.S. adversaries in the Arctic, the Alaska office of the Coast Guard said on Tuesday.

The two Russian border guard ships and two Chinese coast guard ships were monitored by an HC-130 aircraft as they conducted what the Coast Guard said in a statement was a routine patrol on Saturday.

The ships were spotted in a joint formation about 440 miles southwest of Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island, the statement said.

The vessels stayed about 5 miles within Russia’s exclusive economic zone. It was the northernmost location where Chinese vessels have been seen by the U.S. Coast Guard, the statement said. The Bering Sea separates Russia from Alaska.

The HC-130 was dispatched from Air Station Kodiak to follow the ships.

“This recent activity demonstrates the increased interest in the Arctic by our strategic competitors,” said Rear Adm. Megan Dean, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District. “The demand for Coast Guard services across the region continues to grow, requiring continuous investment in our capabilities to meet our strategic competitors’ presence and fulfill our statutory missions across an expanding operational area.”

The operation to monitor the Russian and Chinese ships was conducted under the Coast Guard’s Operation Frontier Sentinel, which seeks to “meet presence with presence when strategic competitors operate in and around U.S. waters,” the statement said.

The joint maritime patrol followed a combined flight by Chinese and Russian bombers off the Alaska coast in July.

The bombers intruded into the U.S. air defense identification zone. It was the first such joint bomber patrol by the Russians and Chinese near U.S. territory.

China’s coast guard said the joint maritime patrol in the Bering Sea followed a Chinese-Russian drill and was seeking to check fishing boats and maintain order in the North Pacific, The Associated Press reported. The boats conducted search-and-rescue exercises and showed “high efficiency in coordination and cooperation.”

China and Russia have increased military and security cooperation under a 2022 agreement known as the “no limits” pact. The U.S. government has criticized China for its growing indirect military support to Russia in its war in Ukraine.

Last month, troops from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division and the 1st and 3rd Multi Domain Task Forces were deployed to Shemya Island in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The troops are part of a force projection operation to move soldiers and equipment to oarts of the North Pacific.

“As the number of adversarial exercises increases around Alaska and throughout the region, including June’s joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol, the operation to Shemya Island demonstrates the division’s ability to respond to events in the Indo-Pacific or across the globe, with a ready, lethal force within hours,” said Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division, said of the deployment of what are called the Arctic Angels.

The 11th Airborne Division is assigned to the Indo-Pacific Command.

“Our ability to deploy combat-credible forces quickly and effectively to any location, no matter how remote, is critical to supporting the nation and our strong relationships with allies and partner nations,” Gen. Hilbert said.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, Alaska Republican, praised the troop deployment to Shemya.

“We need to answer force with force and continue building up America’s military presence in Alaska and the Arctic with more infrastructure, like the strategic Arctic port at Nome and reopening the Adak Naval Air Facility, and more military assets,” he said.

Walz hit on China ties

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, had an uncomfortable time in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate trying to explain how he misspoke about being in Hong Kong during China’s bloody crackdown on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators in June 1989.

Asked about the statements that were exposed as incorrect in media reports, Mr. Walz said he had the opportunity to travel to China in the summer of 1989 and launched a program to bring young people “back and forth” to the country.

“The issue for that was, was to try and learn,” he said.

“I will say more than anything, many times, I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric. But being there, the impact it made, the difference it made in my life. I learned a lot about China,” he said, noting that he has been criticized for the travel.

Mr. Walz also defended the inaccurate statements, saying” “I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect. And I’m a knucklehead at times.”

Pressed by CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan to explain the discrepancy, Mr. Walz said: “All I said on this was, is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just … that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer earlier this week issued a subpoena to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seeking intelligence reports, documents and communications on Mr. Walz’s possible ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The Kentucky Republican said he recently learned from a government whistleblower that the Department of Homeland Security has information on Mr. Walz’s connections to China’s ruling party.

Separately, a super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump’s campaign set up a website called “Tiananmen Tim” to highlight what it says are the Minnesota governor’s China ties. The website, created by Make America Great Again Inc., includes a photo of Mr. Walz wearing a Mao-style hat and asserts that he is “putting China first, America last.”

The website states that Mr. Walz falsely claimed to be in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen massacre when he was in Nebraska at the time.

Other China-related criticism included references to Mr. Walz’s 30 visits to China, including his 1994 honeymoon that was timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.

“Tim Walz has admitted that he does not ‘fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship,’” the website states.

The vice presidential candidate also spoke in 2019 at an event with the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship With Foreign Countries.

The State Department in 2020 described the group as “a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments,” including efforts “to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote [China’s] global agenda.”

Analyst questions estimates on pace of Chinese nuclear expansion

China’s rapid buildup of nuclear assets could be much larger than current U.S. government assessments, according to former Pentagon strategic affairs analyst Mark B. Schneider.

Beijing is engaged in the world’s largest missile modernization program, and its nuclear delivery vehicle program is the most visible aspect of what has been called a nuclear “breakout” by American military commanders.

“With the exception of the possibly dual-capable (nuclear and conventional) DF-27 [intercontinental ballistic missile/intermediate-range ballistic missile], all Chinese strategic missiles are nuclear armed,” Mr. Schneider said in an article in the Journal of Policy and Strategy.

Annual Pentagon reports on the Chinese military provide the most authoritative counts of China’s military, but “have a poor record in assessing China’s nuclear threat,” he said.

“In combination, the 2022 and 2023 [Department of Defense] reports stated that China had 500+ ‘operational’ nuclear warheads in May 2023, growing to 1,000+ ‘operational’ warheads in 2030, and is ‘on track to exceed previous projections,’ i.e., about 1,500 warheads in 2035,” Mr. Schneider said.

These estimates may significantly undercount the Chinese nuclear arsenal, but if the projections are accurate, it still means that China will reach rough numerical nuclear parity with the United States by the mid-2030s.

“If the [Defense Department] is wrong, China may achieve superiority — several thousand nuclear weapons — within a few years,” said Mr. Schneider, senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, which publishes the journal. That would mean the U.S. military will be much less capable of deterring China than the deterrence calculus based on Pentagon estimates.

China’s long-range missiles are being outfitted with multiple warheads, with newer systems capable of carrying up to 10 warheads.

Recent Pentagon reports may have also substantially undercounted the number of Chinese nuclear weapons carried by bombers.

Mr. Schneider concludes that the aggressive Chinese nuclear buildup is neither defense-based nor intended to deter aggressors.

“Rather, it coincides with Beijing’s aggressive, expansionist policies in which nuclear weapons provide coercive leverage for regional expansion and the ultimate means in war-fighting strategies,” he said. “China already has enough modern systems to deploy thousands of nuclear weapons now. … The 2035 estimate of 1,500 Chinese nuclear warheads … may turn out to be very low.

“Additionally, Chinese secrecy and deception, the difficulties in counting mobile missiles, and the concealment of underground facilities may result in the United States “failing to grasp the full scope of Chinese nuclear systems,” Mr. Schneider said.

The Pentagon has also been unwilling to acknowledge that “U.S. policy has misjudged China, being optimistic in the extreme, and remains lethargic as China achieves a larger, more modern and sometimes more capable force than the Cold War-legacy American nuclear deterrent,” he said.

“It appears to seek nuclear superiority to preclude American support to its allies against Chinese attack and assure Chinese victory in a future war.”

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.