He declined to comment when asked if it was the first such patrol over the Bering Sea.
Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, a policy researcher at the Rand Corporation who specialises in Chinese military strategy, said the commentary from China “suggests that this is intended as a kind of tit for tat retaliation for US military activity in China’s EEZ [exclusive economic zone] that Beijing has long opposed and sought to get the US to stop”.
He added that it was an “unsurprising evolution of China and Russia’s evening military ties” as these “bomber flights have been occurring previously in Asia and Alaska is one place where both of them can use their air force.”
He also noted the relationship between the two of the US’s adversaries as a “deepening partnership.”
“This has been a long standing partnership, but it’s obviously grown deeper and deeper since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022… the general understanding is that Moscow has become more desperate for Beijing’s support, and so it’ll be interesting… if we can tell who was the driver behind this flight”, he said.
In recent years, China has helped Russia revive its military by providing essential tools and components to produce weapons for the war in Ukraine.
In 2023, 90 per cent of Russia’s microelectronics imports, crucial for the production of missiles, tanks and aircraft, came from China, The Wall Street Journal reported.
China supplied Russia with more than 70 per cent of its nearly $900 million (£699 million) machine-tool imports in the last quarter of 2023. Beijing sent nitrocellulose, a compound used to make ammunition and rockets, to Russia, as well as satellite imagery.