https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c...aska-fckh6jh22
China sends warships to Alaska
China dispatched a task force of warships led by the pride of Beijing’s fleet to patrol waters off Alaska, escalating its rivalry with the United States for maritime dominance.
Two guided missile destroyers, believed to be Type 055 Nanchang and Type 052D Guiyang vessels, were joined by a surveillance ship and a resupply vessel in a fleet that sailed into the US exclusive economic zone off the Aleutian Island chain.
The expedition was revealed by the US military’s Defence Visual Information Distribution Service website. It published images of the US coastguard “shadowing” the Chinese vessels as they travelled through US waters.
The article was later removed, prompting speculation in Beijing that it had been taken down because the incursion into US waters represented a “loss of face” for Washington.
One image showed Captain Tim Brown, commanding officer of the US coastguard vessel, the Bertholf, as he communicated with “a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy ship operating as part of a four-ship task force”. It said interactions between US and Chinese warships on August 29 and August 30 had been “safe and professional”.
However, the development was an escalation in tensions between the two superpowers only a week after Hu Xijin, editor of the main state media outlet, the
Global Times, predicted that China would soon send a fleet towards America.
Responding to so-called freedom of navigation exercises by the US in the
South China Sea last month, Xijin said: “Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation. That day will come soon.”
Xijin added today that the exercises near Alaska had started an era of a “bigger maritime rivalry between China and the US”. He said: “The era when the US ships one-sidedly declare ‘freedom of navigation’ in China’s near seas will be replaced by a new era in which Chinese and US battleships will reach near each other’s territorial seas.
“There will be a transition of several decades, but eventually China and the US, under brand-new conditions and through comparisons, will reach a rule of equity to ensure maritime safety.”
The Nanchang is the pride of the Chinese fleet. It was seen leading the flotilla as it sailed east through the Soya Strait, off Japan, on August 24. According to Beijing, that had been to “send a warning to Japanese right-wing forces and militarists” after Yoshihide Suga, the Japanese prime minister, sent an offering to the
Yasukuni Shrine, which honoured war criminals from the Second World War, angering China.
As it made its way to Alaska, state media said the flotilla was “fully capable of safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity” in the face of “interfering foreign forces”. Its 112 missile silos make it “one of the world’s most powerful warships, if not the most powerful”, according to Beijing…..
Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Timesthat the US military and coastguard were “wary of the presence of Chinese warships close to the country, particularly advanced destroyers like the Type 055”.
“Warships from the US have been making frequent provocations near China in the name of freedom of navigation and now it might feel a little uncomfortable to see Chinese warships on its doorstep,” Wei said, adding that “this is a countermeasure and a signal against the US actions of hegemony”.
Beijing speculated that the Washington could feel it had “lost face by having Chinese warships sailing near it, taking some of its own medicine of freedom of navigation”……