Red Tide Rising as U.S. Coast Guard Warns of Beijing’s ‘Increased’ Activity in America’s Arctic Waters

The United States Coast Guard is raising the alarm about Communist China’s seven “research vessels” off Alaska, announcing that it’s “monitoring” them all. Expect Beijing’s escalating incursions to add urgency to President Trump’s push to secure Greenland and get NATO allies to do more to secure the top of the world.

In a statement on Friday, the Coast Guard said it had “detected and responded to two Chinese research vessels operating in the U.S. Arctic” on Tuesday. A D-130J Hercules from Air Station Kodiak intercepted the “icebreakers” Ji Di and the Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di as they were sailing northeast in the Bering Sea.

The Coast Guard Cutter Waesche intercepted one of the icebreakers again on Wednesday north of the Arctic Circle. It reached the Chukchi Sea by passing through the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula. 

Just 51 miles across at its narrowest, the Bering Strait is sure to be a new thoroughfare for global trade and a chokepoint in any future war. Last year, the Coast Guard said three of Beijing’s “vessels conducted research operations north of the” strait, raising suspicions that they’re mapping the ocean floor for their submarines.

 Executing Operation Frontier Sentinel, the Coast Guard, “responds to adversaries operating in and around Alaska” in America’s coldest waters. The patrols are “intended to counter malign activities, defend sovereign interests, and promote maritime conduct consistent with international law and norms.”

The only American “surface presence in the Arctic,” the Coast Guard is key to securing what it calls “a growing zone of strategic global competition.” The service branch credited “historic investment” with enabling it to build “a robust national fleet of icebreakers” to “secure U.S. access, security, and leadership” in the region. 

In July, a Coast Guard Hercules intercepted the Xue Long 2 about 290 nautical miles off Utqiagvik, Alaska. America’s northernmost city, Utqiagvik has had a strategic military presence since World War II, when the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska were invaded and occupied by Japan.

Despite its geographic location, Communist China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018 and began ramping up patrols into the resource-rich polar region. The Coast Guard is tracking Beijing’s seven vessels “in or near the U.S. Arctic,” saying the number is “consistent with a three-year trend of increased activity.”

Communist China has also built toeholds on the other side of the Arctic Ocean, becoming a stakeholder in the deep-water port at Arkhangelsk, Russia — 594 miles from the NATO ally, Finland — and investing in local pipelines. Beijing has also built Arctic facilities in two other NATO nations, Iceland and Norway.

In February, the chief executive of American Global Strategies, Alexander Gray, urged a focus on checking Beijing’s icy ambitions. Mr. Trump, he told a Senate committee, had “brought critical public attention to” Greenland’s “strategic significance in the Western Hemisphere and to American national security.”

Mr. Gray warned of “the threats that adversary influence or control of Greenland,” a territory of, in Denmark, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty, “can pose to the U.S.” He noted that America had occupied the location after the Danes surrendered to Nazi Germany in World War II and launched their “cooperation policy” with Berlin.

“China and Russia,” Mr. Gray said, “have demonstrated their interest in finding weak spots in the Arctic” and “both countries are investing heavily in icebreakers, including nuclear-powered ones.” He described Beijing’s claim of being a “near-Arctic power” as “preposterous” and warned that its “Polar Silk Road” initiative demonstrated expansionist intent.

So far, Denmark has rebuffed Mr. Trump’s efforts to buy Greenland, as it did American offers in 1867, 1910, 1946, and 1955. The president, though, appears to be determined. “For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world,” he wrote in January on Truth Social, “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Communist China has made clear its goal of expanding its footprint in the Arctic by muscling out other nations. As the red tide rises, the U.S. Coast Guard is standing sentinel as the first line of defense, giving America time to build countermeasures and be ready if the cold war at the top of the world someday turns hot.