The Polar Silk Road: China’s Multilevel Arctic Strategy to Globalize the Far North

• Main Author: Reinhard Biedermann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Sun Yat-sen University 2020-09-01
• Series: Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal
• Subjects: barents; international political economy; foreign policy; multilevel governance; resources; belt and road initiative
• Online Access: https://icaps.nsysu.edu.tw/var/file/131/1131/img/CCPS6(2)-Biedermann.pdf

China has become an eminent Arctic actor in recent years due to its resource investments and bilateral diplomacies towards Russia and the Nordics. However, its arrival in the Arctic also aroused suspicion in foreign media and politics, which are distressed about China’s goals in the Far North and the Belt and Road Initiative in general. This article assumes that the precondition for an effective and welcome Arctic diplomacy is how China manages and approaches the different levels and actors involved in Arctic governance. It argues that it is the small but wealthy European Arctic states that are indispensable for China to increase and accommodate its Arctic status and to complete the announced Polar Silk Road (PSR) in the years to come. Russia is mainly a conduit for China in connecting the PSR with Western Europe. However, Beijing’s primary interests lie in robust and cooperative bilateral relations with the Arctic European states, enabling it to flexibly react to future external developments and opportunities, to promote the globalisation of, and China’s access to, the Arctic. Hence the Nordic societies should be aware that China’s Arctic rise may also entail severe environmental costs in the fragile Arctic environment. The article concludes that China has adapted to the Arctic governance system peacefully so far, although this system needs to react flexibly to the new challenges that arise.