SpaceWar.com reports: “The US Defense Department warned Monday of increasing Russian-Chinese collaboration in the Arctic, as climate change opens the region to greater competition over maritime routes and resources.

‘We’ve seen growing cooperation between the PRC and Russia in the Arctic commercially, with the PRC being a major funder of Russian energy exploitation in the Arctic,’ Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told journalists, using an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

There is also growing military cooperation, ‘with Russia and China conducting joint exercises off the coast of Alaska,’ Hicks said as the department released its 2024 Arctic strategy.

‘All of these challenges have been amplified because the effects of climate change are rapidly warming temperatures and thinning ice coverage, and it’s enabling all of this activity,’ she said…”