Arctic Interests:

The Nordic Embrace:Why the Nordic Countries Welcome Asia to the Arctic Table Leiv Lunde (bio) A range of Asian countries—China, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea—were welcomed by the Arctic countries as observers to the Arctic Council in May 2013. This was a controversial decision long resisted by Arctic powers Russia and Canada, with the United States undecided until right before the final decision. The Nordic countries, on the other hand, led by Norway, emphasized the positive aspects of Asia’s interest and saw the region’s greater participation in Arctic affairs as strengthening governance and making the Arctic Council a more relevant and future-oriented forum. This essay examines the Nordic countries—Denmark (including Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—as Arctic nations and describes their Arctic geography, identity, and economic, political, and security interests. It then seeks to explain the Nordic countries’ basically positive attitude toward Asian involvement in the Arctic, while also identifying the limits and elements of skepticism that still exist. In concluding, the essay looks into the future and discusses challenges and opportunities for the Nordic countries arising from increased Asian ventures into Arctic lands and waters. Nordic Arctic Interests There are commonalities as well as differences in the Nordic countries’ Arctic interests. The commonalities among the Nordic states are most striking: history, geography, culture, trade, and politics today knit them closely together such that they cooperate intimately in Nordic as well as international institutions. Sweden and Norway fought a brief war in 1814 and were on the verge of war as recently as 1905. Yet despite this history, as well as their different experiences during World War II and varying security alliances to date, the Nordic countries enjoy strong and peaceful cooperation along virtually every thinkable dimension. Yet one of the surprises meeting the Asian countries in their quest for Nordic support for their participation in the Arctic Council was the relative lack of a formal Arctic identity in the Nordic region. Arctic politics [End Page 39] is decided in the capitals located far south of the Arctic, and there are no Arctic budgets or regional planning units in national ministries. Even the small minority of indigenous peoples in the high north (mainly the Saami people) pay their taxes to the national governments, and the majority of the Arctic Nordic populations view themselves primarily as national citizens rather than Arctic citizens in any significant sense. Nevertheless, the Arctic matters a lot to the Nordic countries, and increasingly so in the wake of growing global attention to the region’s affairs. A potentially important difference between these states stems from Norway and Iceland not being members of the European Union (EU). Back in May 2013, for example, the admittance of the five Asian countries to the Arctic Council hung in the balance partly due to a spat between the EU (also an applicant for a formal observer role) and Canada over seal hunting. Canada is furious at the EU for boycotting Canadian sealskin production, which is seen as a traditional custom and important business opportunity in Canada’s Arctic region. Although the Nordic EU members found this spat frustratingly difficult and were skeptical of some of the EU’s reasoning, they had to align with Brussels. For this and other reasons, Norway became a major broker in Kiruna, ensuring that a decision was made. The Asian countries, along with Italy, were accepted as formal observers, while the EU still must wait in the wings for some hard-won concessions from intransigent Canada—the current Arctic Council president. The differences among the Nordic countries—which again are moderate and should be seen in a holistic context—are mainly due to three factors: • Geography. Some Nordic countries are Arctic coastal states, while others are not. • Economy. The level of economic activity and interest in the Arctic differs significantly among the Nordic countries. • Political and security alliances. Norway and Iceland are outside the EU, while Finland and Sweden remain outside NATO. Norway is by most definitions the most important Nordic Arctic country, trailing only Russia in global Arctic significance. Mainland Norway includes considerable land, coast, and ocean areas that reside north of the Arctic Circle...

With a brief history review of China’s participation in the 20th century Arctic activities, the article discusses basic directions of China’s Arctic interests in the 21th century, examines their legal grounds and mechanisms for their pursuit. Considering China‘s Arctic interests related to climate change, economic, scientific and political activities, the author emphasizes that the latter primarily serve its desire for a better understanding of climate change dynamics and economic interest. While elaborating on legal issues, the author also admits the existence of legal disputes that impede the pursuit of Chinese interests. Furthermore, when introducing the mechanisms for China’s Arctic interests pursuit as a complex which can be achieved in governmental, academic and commercial aspects, the obstructive practical factors in the process of implementation, and the shortcomings of the according mechanisms are discussed. Attempting to analyze the perspective and summarize the basic position of Chinese government on the present issue, the author adopts the methods of history research, document research, interdisciplinary research and comparison, and draws the conclusion that, as a non-Arctic state, China does not regard Arctic as a foreign policy priority and raises no claims in the region. China shows respect to the sovereignty and sovereign rights of Arctic countries, while insisting that non-Arctic states should also exercise the right of scientific research and navigation. To develop a partnership of cooperation, Arctic and non-Arctic states should recognize and respect each other's rights under the international law. China endorses UNCLOS to be the main legal instrument of the Arctic Governance and considers the Arctic Council as the most influential international forum promoting the development of Arctic Governance and cooperation. Unprepared as China has been to form its official Arctic policy, it will continue to actively participate in all aspects of the governance and cooperation in the region.

ABSTRACTSingapore’s Arctic interests are typically explained by its limited regional market and the government’s stakes in shipping, maritime infrastructure, and global governance. Yet the city-state’s polar pursuits also reflect the government’s strategy of crafting a global national identity in step with its expansion of overseas economic activities. In this article, based on reviews of government speeches, documents, and press releases, observations at Arctic development conferences, and expert interviews, I first describe three regional shifts in the Arctic that have made Singapore’s involvement possible: the globalization of the Arctic economy, a transition from national government to global governance, and the production of the Arctic region as an investment frontier. Second, I elucidate the export-oriented industrial drivers of Singapore’s Arctic interests. These have led to the economy’s deterritorialization, which state discourses projecting Singapore as a “Global City” support. Third, I analyze how these two transformations—the Arctic’s globalization and Singapore’s deterritorialization—have together created an opportunity for the Singaporean government to “jump scale” in Arctic cooperation, specifically by shedding light on its partnerships with indigenous peoples’ organizations. As climate change accelerates, the Singaporean government’s Arctic efforts suggest that it sees the increasingly maritime region as a new scalar fix for overseas investment that it is securing through unconventional partnerships while living up to its quest to view the world as its hinterland. Singapore’s involvement in the Arctic may globalize the region’s economy, but it may also deepen northern dependence on place-based sectors like natural resources and shipping.

Framing the “Polar Silk Road” (冰上丝绸之路): Critical geopolitics, Chinese scholars and the (Re)Positionings of China's Arctic interests

The Arctic archipelago of Svalbard has been under Norwegian sovereignty since 1920 yet remains subject to international law. Until recently, the islands’ only major economic activities were unprofitable Russian and Norwegian funded mining operations aimed at maintaining continuous settlement. Now, however, Norway’s top-down governance of the territory has been complicated by the emergence of economic diversity, multinationalism, and local democracy in the town of Longyearbyen. Simultaneously, China and other states are promoting their Arctic interests by exploiting the preoccupation with Russia that characterizes Norway’s Svalbard policy. By interpreting Svalbard’s local communities through the prism of international relations, this article highlights the practical challenges to creating genuinely international territories.

Because Alaska is not contiguous with the other continental United States, the United States was slow to develop a coherent, comprehensive Arctic policy until late in the twentieth century, a policy which continues to evolve. For American policy leaders, Alaska was remote and of minimal consideration. The discovery of the largest oil deposit in North America at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, coincident with the rise of the national environmental movement, generated new appreciation of the significance of the Arctic to the United States, and new policy initiatives. The United States worked with the Law of the Sea conferences at the United Nations to formulate its Arctic interests, which it expressed chiefly through the Arctic Council. Today US Arctic policy is directed toward issues of sovereignty and Arctic sea commerce, new resource development, and the impacts of global climate change. The United States has committed significant resources to scientific analysis of Arctic conditions and potential development, a commitment likely to continue into the long-range future.

As one of the Arctic Council’s permanent observer states, South Korea has implemented various policies related to the Arctic despite its significant geographical and cultural distance from the Arctic countries. While most literature analysing the country’s active involvement in the region has focused on economic interests, little attention has been dedicated to the political aspect of South Korea’s Arctic policy. In this article, we argue that South Korea’s international influence as a middle power state needs to be recognised, and that the Arctic has served as an arena for the ROK to assert its influence on international issues. With this political intent, South Korea’s policies of globalisation and soft power also served as tools in its middle power diplomacy in the Arctic. We examine this political aim of South Korea’s Arctic interests by chronicling the country’s Arctic policy and middle power diplomacy.

China and Russia have deepened their cooperation in the Arctic, building on their ‘no limit’ relationship that encompasses both economic and political cooperation. Recently, this cooperation has expanded to include joint naval exercises between the Chinese Coast Guard and Russian patrol vessels. This article examines Sino-Russian Arctic cooperation through a neoclassical realist framework that incorporates both systemic and domestic factors into the analysis. We offer the domestic variable of historical distrust, an approach often overlooked by other realist theories. Historical distrust can be understood as as negative historical events or developments which impact states’ current foreign policy decisions. We argue that while systemic pressures increasingly align China and Russia’s Arctic interests, historical distrust between the two states constrains them from forming an alliance in the region. This article demonstrates the value of neoclassical realism in analysing Arctic geopolitics and highlights the significance of historical factors in shaping of current Sino-Russian relations.

The European Union (EU) “realized” its Arctic interests mainly due to the entry of Denmark, and then Finland and Sweden, which forced Brussels to start developing special programs for the development of the northern and subarctic territories. Over time, the Arctic has become an increasingly important object of attention for scientists, ecologists, power engineers, the military, including those from the EU countries. It was gradually opened up as a military-strategic region, influencing the global climate, forming new logistical sea routes, and as a storehouse of resources. Given the ever-growing interest in the Arctic of the socalled non-Arctic players, primarily China, the EU is also striving to define its position in the region. Its ability to cooperate with other actors, including the Arctic Council, is limited by many factors and circumstances. Nevertheless, Brussels is clearly following the agenda of increasing its presence in the Arctic. However, given the current de facto ignorance by the Arctic Council countries of the largest Arctic state represented by Russia, the still cautious attitude towards the EU on the part of other Council members may be changed. The purpose of the article is to identify the most significant factors that determine the possibility of strengthening the EU’s position in the Arctic, as well as the circumstances that impede this strategy. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: to analyze the main aspects of the EU Arctic strategy; identify opportunities for EU interaction with Arctic institutions; indicate the influence of the Russian factor on the Arctic prospects of the EU.

Significance In recent decades, the focus for Ottawa has been on Russian interest in the Arctic, but Beijing has been showing increased diplomatic and military interest in the region. Canada faces an uphill battle to assert sovereignty in its Arctic North and it is not clear that Washington’s Arctic interests will help. Impacts Melting sea ice will boost economic opportunity for Canada’s northern communities as they become viable commercial locations. Canadian governments will spend to boost Canada’s military presence in the North but new capabilities will be slow to emerge. Russian power projection in the Arctic will be through icebreakers and submarines for the foreseeable future. China hopes to deploy significant resources into mining in Northern Canadian communities, which are struggling for investment. Canada will collaborate more closely with Arctic Council allies to close ranks against Russian and Chinese activity.

The Arctic region has ascended to a position of paramount strategic and economic significance within the global order. As a consequence, it has become an increasingly attractive arena not only for Arctic states but also for external actors. While numerous non-Arctic countries have established their Arctic interests and formulated corresponding strategies, there are no studies in the scientific literature that address the prospects and opportunities of this region for Kazakhstan. This study identifies climate change, scientific capabilities, transit opportunities, and global initiatives as key factors shaping Kazakhstan›s Arctic prospects. The research findings expand understanding of promising directions for Kazakhstan›s foreign policy, specifically regarding opportunities that the Arctic region can offer non-Arctic countries.

Russia’s Arctic Strategies and the Future of the Far North is an outstanding piece of scholarship, which brings much needed light and depth to a better understanding of Russia’s Arctic interests an...

The article concentrates on two issues articulated by Xu Guangmiao in her article “China's Arctic Interests and Policy: History, Legal Ground and Implementation” published in the same issue of the Journal: Arctic Governance (and particularly the applicability of the "Common Heritage of the Mankind in the Arctic" concept), as well as the concept of the Northern Sea Route “internationalization” based on the navigation freedom principle. Both issues are considered controversial in Russia–China relations. In addressing those issues, the author seeks to separate real and alleged divergences between the two countries. He argues that apparent differences in their particular approaches do not reflect any fundamental divergences and can be transcended if handled pragmatically, with recognition of the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdictions of coastal states, as well as of the non-Arctic states' rights and responsibilities under the Law of the Sea. In particular, the author argues that there is no controversy surrounding China’s expectation that an Area of the Common Heritage of the Mankind would occur in the central part of the Arctic Ocean as long as the process of the continental shelf outer limits setting by the coastal states in the Arctic Ocean takes place within the procedures established by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Similarly, China accepts the regulation of vessels traffic alongside the Northern Sea Route based on the Article 234 of the Convention, and would not be able to claim the freedom of transit passage through the NSR straits unless it joined the U.S. claim that the straight baselines drawn by Russia (and Canada) effectively including those straits into their internal sea waters violate the provisions of the Convention. So far, China does not. And as long as the NSR water area remains ice-covered for most of the year, this issue remains of theoretical rather than of practical importance.

Arctic Interests: How China Is Challenging the US

ARCTIC GIMMICKSThe Arctic is widely presented as the object of a geopolitical race for natural resources, ou and gas in particular, with Russia as the main driver. Russia is often portrayed as taking an expansionist and muitarist stance in a mad dash to grab territory and thereby energy resources in the Arctic, whether in relation to Norway in the Barents Sea and Svalbard, or Canada and Denmark at the north pole.A case in point is the planting of a flag on the seabed under the north pole by Russian scientists in 2007. In the west this was often described as an underwater land-grab demonstrating Russia's imperialist and expansionist approach to the Arctic.In western coverage of the event there was little mention of the fact that it is common for explorers to plant their national flags when they reach difficult targets - Mount Everest, the south pole, the north pole, the moon, and so on. Much coverage also ignored the fact that Russia (unlike the US and several other countries) has ratified the law ofthe sea convention and appears to be trying to promote its Arctic interests within this legal framework, including the submission of continental-shelf documentation to the UN to substantiate its territorial claims.Western commentators also tend to overlook similarities between the Russian approach and the approaches of their own countries to the Arctic. The foUowing case serves as an example. In January 2008, only half a year after the infamous flag-planting, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg went on an expedition to Antarctica. He stopped on Dronning Maud Land and emphasized Norway's claim to it, although this claim is not recognized by many other countries. The territory is on the other side ofthe planet and there has never been a permanent Norwegian settlement there, except for Norwegian polar scientists carrying out research. A television crew also filmed Stoltenberg settling in for the night in a polar sleeping bag in a tent at -19C, demonstrating his youthfulness and physical capabuity. The trip was widely covered in the Norwegian media, without any critical questions concerning the prime minister and his politics, or Norwegian Antarctic policy. Upon his return, Stoltenberg was interviewed on the main Norwegian television channel, which is fully state-owned. The venue was Anne Gross void' s weU-established talk show, in which the presenter establishes a friendly and intimate tone with her interviewees and asks slightly personal but not overly critical questions. The show has become an excellent opportunity for celebrities to promote themselves. OveraU, the media coverage of the Antarctic trip was a one-sided celebration of Norwegian prowess in polar exploration and science, a unique opportunity for the personal political promotion of Jens Stoltenberg, and perhaps a celebration of Norway's macho-oriented polar exploration traditions. It was also a way of revitalizing Norwegian territorial claims in the remote Antarctic.The point here is not to criticize Stoltenberg as a politician or his Antarctic visit and its media coverage, but rather to show that the Russian flag-planting incident at the north pole is not unique. In both in the Stoltenberg and Russian flag-planting cases, the opportunity to use government resources (including government-controUed media) to promote individual and sectoral interests for a domestic audience was at least as important a driver as any international political agenda.RUSSIA'S ARCTIC STRATEGY TOWARDS 2020Of course polar policy does not consist solely, or even mainly, of flag-planting and talk-show coverage of prime ministerial expeditions to Antarctica. Moving on from such gimmickry to more formal Arctic policy, what really is Russia's approach to the Arctic and its energy resources? To answer that question, we need to assess the main official Russian policy document on the Arctic, Principals of state policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic to 2020 and beyond. …