Abstract
The impact of climate change in the Arctic Ocean such as ice melting and ice retreat facilitates natural resources extraction. Arctic fossil fuel becomes the drivers of geopolitical changes in the Arctic Ocean. Climate change facilitates natural resource extractions and increases competition between states and can result in tensions, even military ones. This article investigates through a political and legal analysis the role of China as an emerging regulatory sea power in the Arctic Ocean given its assertive “energy hungry country behaviour” in the Arctic Ocean. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Arctic Council (AC) are taken into consideration under climate change effects, to assess how global legal frameworks and institutions can deal with China’s strategy in the Arctic Ocean. China’s is moving away from its role as “humble power” to one of “informal imperialistic” resulting in substantial impact on the Arctic and Antartic dynamism. Due to ice-melting, an easy access to natural resources, China’s Arctic strategy in the Arctic Ocean has reinforced its military martitime strategy and has profoundly changed its maritime military doctrine shifting from regional to global in the context of UNCLOS. In particular, it is wondered, what China understands about the public order dimension of UNCLOS. The article concludes that despite China’ assertive behaviour towards the Arctic environmental ocean and its rise as global sea power, for the time being, China cannot be considered as a variable for Arctic security as there are no sufficient legal and policy objective elements to adduct that it constitutes a threat to Artic ocean security.
Highlights
While the United Nations (UN) Climate Secretariat of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) based in Bonn is working hard to prepare for the Paris Meeting of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC which is expected to take place in December 2015, the Arctic is continuing to melt due to climate change effects
This has created a huge access to petroleum, attracting strong interest by some states, especially energy hungry-countries, and increasing competition between states, resulting in tension and threats, even military ones (Contestaline, 2013)
From an Arctic Ocean security perspective, this imply that global legal frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (Vidas, 2000) and institutions such as the Arctic Council (AC)1 should be able to deal with climate change’s uncertainties and potential threats, associated with specific Arctic and non-Arctic assertive “energy countries’ behaviours” in getting easy access and control on oil and gas
Summary
While the United Nations (UN) Climate Secretariat of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) based in Bonn is working hard to prepare for the Paris Meeting of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC which is expected to take place in December 2015, the Arctic is continuing to melt due to climate change effects. This section will shed light on China’s power to vary Arctic Ocean security by analyzing a specific aspect of a change that occurred in its foreign policy: the change in its maritime military doctrine as a key component of its Arctic strategy (Section 2.1) and observe from there how China perceives its adherence to UNCLOS as part of its grand strategy (Subsection 2.2). This will serve to elucidate if China represents a threat or not to Arctic Environmental Ocean security (Section 2.3) in the context of climate change effects and energy resources needs. The proof of the change will not to be found in non-Chinese literature nor in the black box of the Chinese decision-making process, nor using orthodox rational choice theories, because they are not suitable for this type of investigation and because most of the documentation is top secret
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