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By Ryan Chan
China News Reporter
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A Canadian warship tracked a Chinese icebreaker last month in the Bering Strait as China attempted to expand and reinforce its presence in the Arctic region.
Canada's defense department confirmed to local media that HMCS Regina, a 4,795-ton Halifax-class frigate armed with missiles, "interacted safely and professionally" with the Xue Long 2, China's first indigenous polar research vessel, as it transited the Bering Strait.
The strategic waterway lies between the Arctic Ocean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south, while separating the Russian Far East to the west and Alaska to the east.
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China has called itself a "near-Arctic state" and has two icebreaking polar research vessels in service, the Xue Long and the Xue Long 2. The latter, delivered in 2019, has a displacement of 15,421 tons and is capable of breaking polar ice with both its bow and stern.
Canadian media reported, citing open-source vessel tracking websites, that the Regina shadowed the Xue Long 2 from July 13 to 17. The warship concluded "Arctic awareness and sovereignty mission" and returned to its home port in British Columbia on July 25.
Chinese state media reported that the Xue Long 2 departed from Qingdao, a city in China's eastern province of Shandong, on July 5. Steffan Watkins, a research consultant based in Canada, said on Thursday the icebreaker has been operating in the Arctic since July 17.
The Regina departed from its home port on July 7 "on short notice for a brief but impactful deployment," local media reported. The United States Coast Guard encountered four Chinese naval vessels in the Bering Sea, north of the Aleutian Islands the day before.
Frédérica Dupuis, spokesperson for Canada's defense department, said the country's armed forces was aware of the presence of China's warships but the Regina did not encounter them.
Meanwhile, China and Russia conducted joint air patrols over the Arctic region, including the Bering Sea, by sending four strategic bombers on July 24. They were intercepted by the American and Canadian fighter jets inside the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone.
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"We are seeing more Russian activity in our air approaches, and a growing number of Chinese dual-purpose research vessels and surveillance platforms collecting data about the Canadian North that is, by Chinese law, made available to China's military," Dupuis said.
The Canadian spokesperson warned that competitors like China and Russia "are exploring Arctic waters and the seafloor, probing our infrastructure and collecting intelligence."
Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa by email for comment on this issue.
The Chinese government published its Arctic policy white paper in 2018 which said the country is an important stakeholder in the Arctic affairs, and is one of the continental states that are "closest" to the Arctic Circle, even though they are 1,844 miles apart.
The white paper listed several policy goals on the Arctic, including "to understand, protect, develop and participate in the governance of the Arctic, so as to safeguard the common interests of all countries and the international community in the Arctic."
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