Alaska, not Greenland, should worry the United States in the Arctic

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Chinese Coast Guard vessels traversing icy waters during the joint exercise with Russia in 2024. Photo: China Coast Guard

The Arctic Institute China Series 2025

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In 2024, China inched closer to its dream of superpower status. During the span of a few months, Chinese bombers were identified off the coast of Alaska, the Chinese Coast Guard entered the Arctic Ocean via the Bering Strait, and the Chinese Navy kept exercising in the Bering Sea. These activities are not only one-off signaling maneuvers meant to irk Washington. They are also a sign of things to come.

It was the Trump administration that first brought attention to China’s Arctic activities, partly by focusing on Chinese interest in Greenland, back in 2019. That concern, however, never materialized. Strategic security issues there can be sufficiently managed by the US and its allies, first and foremost the Kingdom of Denmark.

However, China’s increased presence in the Pacific Arctic should spur the Trump administration’s further focus on Arctic security issues in that spatial domain. The increasing military activities of China centred around the Eastern Arctic region are a strategic and symbolic signaling off the coast of Alaska, and represent a move to support Russia in its Arctic standoff with the U.S.

Growing tension in the North Pacific Theatre

The slither of the Pacific dividing Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska houses Russia’s easternmost and closest permanent naval base to Arctic waters. It is home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet nuclear-powered submarines, in addition to some surface ships. On the US side is Eielson Air Force Base and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

Tensions have been on the rise since 2020, when Russian military activity in this maritime space increased. Russian military exercises interfering with Alaskan fishers have caused concern over the violation of US rights, as well as the fear of escalation between the fishers and the Russian Navy. Increasingly, naval operations in the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea from the Pacific Fleet are also becoming common, adding to Russia’s Arctic presence alongside the Northern Fleet located in the European Arctic.

Although you can walk across the ice between Russia and the U.S. in wintertime, from Little Diomede Island (U.S.) to Big Diomede Island (Russia), it is not the geographic proximity between those two countries that is driving concerns over great power rivalry. Rather, it is Russia’s growing dependency on China that is the underlying cause for concern.

Both in 2021 and 2022, the U.S. Coast Guard encountered Chinese and Russian warships operating jointly off the coast of the Aleutian Islands. After a 2023 Russian-Chinese exercise near Alaska, U.S. news outlets like ABC highlighted concern of the event, calling it ‘unprecedented in size’. Suddenly Alaskan security issues received countrywide attention.

Moreover, for the first time, in summer of 2024 Chinese and Russian bombers were conducting joint operations in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, albeit not violating US airspace. In September 2024, coast guard vessels from both countries conducted joint operations in the same region.

China’s increasing role in the Bering Sea

Although China attaches strategic significance to the Eastern Arctic, including the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Chukchi Sea, the level of Chinese activities has until recently remained modest. Chinese military vessels appeared in the Arctic for the first time in 2015. Russo-Chinese military posturing increased dramatically following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

First, Russia and China increased the scope of joint activities, which usually take place in the vicinity of Japan. In recent years, the scope of joint exercises gradually moved North, with joint naval patrols taking place in the Bering Sea every year since 2022. In 2024, China and Russia conducted their eighth joint aerial strategic patrol, which for the first time took place over the Bering Sea entering the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone.

Second, Russia is expanding the scale of its military exercises since 2022. Russia’s main goal is to show the combat readiness of its reduced military capabilities, including the navy in the eastern theatre. China participates heavily in these exercises, using this as an opportunity to show support to Russia and to train the navy in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Third, China’s own exercises in the North Pacific are a completely new type. In July 2023, China held the first North/Joint-2023 (北部·联合-2023) exercise. Unlike the previous exercises organized jointly or by Russia, this was an exercise organized solely by China, in which Russia took part as a guest. In late September, China again organized the North/Joint-2024 (北部·联合-2024) exercise. This time, the exercise lasted much longer (nearly two weeks, in contrast to four days in 2023).

China seeks to signal its status as a great power, rather than achieve military goals, however. First, the activity aims to develop China’s abilities and competence to operate in remote waters and spatial domains both in tandem with Russia, and independently. Second, this increased military activity is meant to signal to U.S. decision makers that China can break out of the island chain, counter American presence in South and East Asia, especially South China Sea, while also showcasing the military implications of increased Sino-Russian cooperation close to the U.S.

Greenland is a distraction

In the summer of 2024, the Pentagon released its fourth Arctic strategy (the others came out in 2013, 2016 and 2019 respectively). US officials have increasingly named China (as well as China’s confluence with Russia) as security risks to the US in the Arctic. Others warn about China’s long-term geoeconomic interests and actions, calling for a different way of conceptualizing ‘threats’ from China in the Arctic.

It is apparent that a shift in the US federal government’s Arctic security interest and engagement occurred early in the first Trump administration from around 2019. Statements from top politicians, new strategies launched by various branches of the Armed Forces, and investments – albeit modest – in Arctic capabilities in Alaska all materialised around this time. Most recently, the US has sought to allocate even more funding to construction of icebreakers and ports.

The renewed interest in Arctic security affairs is overdue. However, the focus of late on Greenland is misplaced. In Greenland, strategic security threats emanating primarily from Russia can be sufficiently managed through the U.S. military presence there, alongside its cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark, Canada, and the wider NATO alliance.

In the North Pacific the situation is potentially more uncertain. This year, China is planning to start construction of yet another icebreaker, while the US Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter seems to have been delayed until 2030. Although the Arctic is considered a distant and unfamiliar operational environment for China, joint military exercises in the region underscore a strategic collaboration between China and Russia aimed at countering U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific.

The increased scope of Sino-Russian military and coast guard cooperation in the Arctic also underlines the two countries’ resolve to security cooperation in that space. The scrambling of fighter jets to identify Chinese bombers, the presence of Chinese vessels north of the Bering Strait, and the disruption of Alaskan fisheries due to military exercises may become more frequent in years to come.

For China, showing the flag in the Arctic is more about status-seeking than military interests. Still, China’s emerging power as a maritime power has changed the strategic significance of the North Pacific. That is where the U.S. may wish to focus its attention when addressing Arctic security concerns.

Erdem Lamazhapov is a PhD Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, Norway. Andreas Østhagen is a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute and also the Research Director for Arctic and Ocean Politics at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, Norway.