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Melting ice in the Arctic could mean better business opportunities for China. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad explains.
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JEB SHARP: China’s factories and every-growing economy need a constant supply of energy, which means China is always interested in new sources of oil and gas. A recent report says China is now exploring its options in the Arctic. Melting ice in the Arctic is opening up new areas for drilling and new routes for container ships. The World’s Mary Kay Amistad reports from Beijing.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: China is usually a staunch defender of sovereignty when it comes to territorial waters. For instance, it claims almost the entire South China Sea. But when it comes to the Arctic, a resource rich area where China has no natural territorial claim, there’s a different approach.
WANG HANLING: China, and other countries, have the right to protect the common interest of the international community in the Arctic oceans.
MAGISTAD: Wang Hanling directs the Chinese Academy of Social Science’s Research Base for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. He says while China recognizes the 200 mile exclusive economic zone that extends out from the five arctic nations, the U.S., Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark, the question is where their continental shelves end and where the claims of all humanity to the resources of the arctic begin.
HANLING: As we all know, shipping routes and resources in the Arctic are not only important for the coastal states, but also for China and any other states who have the ability to use and protect these resources. Not only use, but protect the resources.
MAGISTAD: A Chinese admiral in the People’s Liberation Army recently made a similar argument. So did a Chinese foreign ministry official attending a conference on the Arctic last year in Norway. Linda Jacobson of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, says these are glimpses into the Chinese government’s growing awareness of, and interest in, the potential of a melting Arctic.
LINDA JACOBSON: The natural resources in the Arctic are of keen interest to many, China included. We know that the Arctic is abundant in riches. Not only is there oil and gas, there’s gold, nickel, zinc, diamonds and so on to be extracted if they can be extracted. And of course, we also know that China needs an increasing amount of all of these natural resources to maintain the economic growth.
MAGISTAD: Jacobson’s report for SIPRI says China is already taking steps to prepare for a future when the Arctic is more accessible. China already has one icebreaker and is spending $300 million to construct another, this time in China. It has sent four expeditions to the Arctic, as well as two dozen to the Antarctic, and has set up a research station in northern Norway. Its embassy in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, is already the biggest foreign embassy there and Chinese researchers are quietly compiling reports on the geopolitical and strategic implications of an ice-free Arctic. Or, at least, an Arctic that’s ice-free part of the year. Jacobson says one reason China is promoting the idea of the Arctic belonging to everyone is that it’s worried that Russia will impose high fees on Chinese ships going through Russian territorial waters, to shave off a few thousand miles on their way to Europe and North America.
JACOBSON: Those routes are not going to be so commercially viable if they are in addition to huge insurance premiums, then also passage fees, ice breaker fees, service fees, perhaps rescue fees; the list could go on and on.
MAGISTAD: So China has already applied for permanent observer status on the Arctic council where the U.S., Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway sit, along with Sweden, Finland and Iceland. And China has been vocal in saying access to the Arctic must be decided by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a process already underway and expected to take years. That’s okay with China; it plays a long term game. In the meantime, it wants to be in on the conversation helping to shape policy and attitudes, opening up opportunities for China as the Arctic opens up to the world. For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.
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