Michael Sfraga, the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs, said in an interview published on Nov. 1 that there have been “concerning signals” regarding Russian and Chinese military cooperation in the Arctic region.
“The fact that they are working together in the Arctic has our attention,” Sfraga, who was sworn in last month, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Alaska. “We are being both vigilant and diligent about this. We’re watching very closely this evolution of their activity.
“It raises our radar, literally and figuratively.”
Last month, China’s coast guard entered the Arctic for the first time to join Russian ships on patrol. In July, Russian and Chinese bomber planes ran a joint exercise off the coast of Alaska.
Sfraga noted that these exercises took place in international waters in accordance with international law. Still, the proximity of those bomber planes to Alaska had raised security concerns in the United States. […]
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