A Study on the Formation of the Arctic Council: Canadian Leadership and China's Response

• Main Authors: Smith, Stephen, 史智文
• Other Authors: Yuan, I
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/m98c56

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 亞太研究英語碩士學位學程(IMAS) === 103 === Thirty years ago the Arctic was a desolate region marked by territorial disputes, mutual suspicion between regional powers, and a complete lack of international cooperation. Today, the Arctic has become a hotbed of cooperation with a mosaic of international regimes governing regional affairs. The Arctic Council has emerged as the most important regime governing Arctic affairs. How did this transformation take place? This thesis argues that middle powers are crucial to regime formation. It examines the role that Canada played in the formation of the Arctic Council. It finds that several Canadian individual leaders acted collectively to bring together the Arctic states and overcome initial resistance in forming the Arctic Council. This study shows that middle powers have the ability to significantly influence regime formation. The second part of this thesis will examine China’s response to the Arctic Council. By surveying the statements of Chinese Arctic officials, it finds that China’s emerging Arctic strategy is to continually stress adherence to international law in Arctic affairs to assuage concerns about China’s Arctic activities while at the same time advocating for a greater decision-making role in Arctic governance for non-Arctic states. An analysis of China’s response to the Arctic Council also reveals three key findings of China’s Arctic cooperation: China’s response in relation to its status as an “outsider” to Arctic affairs, China’s support for the Arctic Council’s transformation from soft law to hard law, and China’s view on Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.