Chinese Shipping Company Wants to Lease the Former U.S. Base at Adak

The head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command supports reactivating the naval airbase at Adak, a remote Cold War station in the Aleutian Islands - but the U.S. military isn't the only interested party, according to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). An unnamed Chinese shipping company has also reached out to the current landowner to express interest in negotiating a lease, Sullivan said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. 

Adak was a key naval base throughout the Cold War, providing a logistics and surveillance hub near Russia's eastern shores. After the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process in the mid-1990s, it was shut down, and it ceased operations in 1997. The land is now held by the native Aleut Corporation.   

The port's remoteness and austerity are hard to overstate: at 1,000 nautical miles west of Anchorage, it is closer to the capital of Russia's Kamchatka region than it is Alaska's main city. It is the second-rainiest place in the United States, and is subject to extreme winds, including hurricane-force North Pacific winter storms. As of 2022 it had a population of about 150 people, down from 6,000 at its peak. 

The U.S. military still holds occasional exercises at Adak, and talk of reviving the base has circulated since at least 2021. The regional security situation is changing: Over the last three years, Russian and Chinese forces have begun operating jointly in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, sometimes crossing over into the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. These transits have received considerable attention, and Adak would be a natural location for an enhanced U.S. deterrent presence, Sen. Sullivan said Thursday. 

Adm. Sam Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the committee that he also favors reactivating Adak. "It is a further western point which would enable . . . [gaining] time and distance on any force capability that's looking to penetrate," Paparo said. "It would enable up to 10x the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft coverage of that key and increasingly contested space."

Sullivan suggested that Adak should be reactivated as a matter of urgency, as the U.S. Navy is not the only prospective tenant. 

"The Aleut Corporation, these are great patriotic Americans. Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. They would love to do a deal with the Navy for a 99 year lease or something like that. But you know who checks in with them once a year?" Sullivan asked. "It's a Chinese shipping company that is, certainly, in my view, a front company for the [Chinese military]. So how embarrassing would it be to the Pentagon or the Navy . . . if somehow they signed 100 year lease with a quote 'Chinese shipping company' that always is out there looking at Adak?"

Sullivan emphasized that the Aleut Corporation would never sign a port lease with a Chinese firm, but asked Paparo his opinion all the same. 

"I think it would be bad, because this is the modus operandi in [China's] Belt and Road Initiative," Paparo replied. 

Northern Command and Indo-Pacific Command are working on a set of options to reactivate the base, Sullivan said, and he pressed for a final report before the end of the month.