FILE – A general view of snowcapped mountains and the Arctic Ocean on the coast of Svalbard near Longyearbyen, Norway, April 5, 2023.
The United States is watching growing cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic closely and some of their recent military collaboration in the region sends "concerning signals", the U.S. Arctic ambassador said.
Russia and China have stepped up military cooperation in the Arctic while deepening overall ties in recent years that include China supplying Moscow with dual-use goods despite Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Russia and the United States are among eight countries with territory in the resource-rich Arctic. China calls itself a "near-Arctic" state and wants to create a "Polar Silk Road" in the Arctic, a new shipping route as the polar ice sheet recedes with rising temperatures.
Michael Sfraga, the United States\’ first ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs, said the "frequency and the complexity" of recent military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing in the region sent "concerning signals".
"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," he added.
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.
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