Snowballs in Rome and China’s Arctic Policy

John Crump

By GRID-Arendal

March 15^th, 2018

February in Europe was colder than in living memory with snowball fights in front of the Colosseum in Rome and people dying of exposure in Poland and several other countries.

In the high Arctic, winter ice hit record lows and temperatures were 30 to 40 degrees Celsius warmer than average for late February. Satellite images showed “a wedge of open water” north of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and out into the Arctic Ocean.

“It’s just crazy, crazy stuff," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who has been studying the Arctic since 1982. "These heat waves – I’ve never seen anything like this.”

In 2004, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was released. Among its key findings, two ring especially true today: (1) “The Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are predicted,” and (2) “Arctic warming and its consequences have worldwide implications.”

Over the last few years, we have seen massive changes in the Arctic and it’s clear that these have worldwide implications. The only difference from 13 years ago is that the change is coming much faster than the ACIA predicted.

Besides altering the physical environment, climate change is changing the geopolitical calculus as well. A major sign of this is the recent release of China’s Arctic Policy, the first comprehensive official statement of the country’s Arctic perspective and intentions. The policy says there are two sides to the picture of Arctic change:

“On the one hand, melting ice in the Arctic has led to changes in the natural environment, or possibly can result in accelerated global warming, rising sea levels, increased extreme weather events, damaged biodiversity, and other global problems.” But, “[o]n the other, with the ice melted, conditions for the development of the Arctic may be gradually changed, offering opportunities for the commercial use of sea routes and development of resources in the region.”

Change in the Arctic is no longer just a matter for states in the region, the policy says. “It is an issue with global implications and international impacts.”

Snowballs in Rome and China’s Arctic Policy

Through its new policy, China has defined itself as a “Near Arctic State” – “one of the continental States that are closest to the Arctic Circle.” It has identified its main interests as improving scientific research (China now has 500 polar scientists), protecting the changing Arctic environment, developing the region and participating “in the governance of the Arctic” through international agreements such as the UN Law of the Sea. It also refers several times to the need to support Indigenous Peoples.

The policy refers to the cooperative development of the “Polar Silk Road” linking this idea to the massive infrastructure project that focuses on the connections between China and its Eurasian neighbours.

While countries “from outside the Arctic region do not have territorial sovereignty in the Arctic,” the policy points out “they do have rights in respect of scientific research, navigation, overflight, fishing, laying of submarine cables and pipelines in the high seas and other relevant sea areas in the Arctic Ocean, and rights to resource exploration and exploitation in the Area, pursuant to treaties such as UNCLOS and general international law.”

Not surprisingly, this policy has generated some discussion and concern.

“I'm a little shocked," said University of Calgary associate professor Robert Huebert, who specializes in Arctic sovereignty issues. "The Chinese do not issue white papers. This clearly illustrated how important the Arctic is to the Chinese."

There is a difference in the way that Canada and China view the Northwest Passage, said Fredéric Lasserre from the Université du Laval in the Canadian province of Québec. Canada sees the passage as internal waters. China, and a number of other countries, consider it an international strait where the right of passage applies. To demonstrate, the Chinese ice breaker Xue Long (or Snow Dragon) traveled through the Northwest Passage last summer on a scientific expedition.

The Chinese policy states that the country has a long history of polar activities dating back to when it signed the Svalbard Treaty in 1925. China has been conducting research from its Yellow River Station on Svalbard since 2004 and as of the end of last year had carried out eight scientific expeditions in the Arctic Ocean.

Yellow River Station on Svalbard. Photo: Tim Ellis

China is looking at the Arctic as a place to invest, as the reference to the Polar Silk road indicates. Even before the policy, China was expanding its commercial contacts in the region. According to a study in the United States, “the Arctic will require close to $1 trillion of infrastructure investment over the next decade.” A recent column published in the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper wondered if the United States, Canada and Greenland are ready for large scale Chinese investment in everything from mining and oil and gas development to tourism.

More than a decade ago, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment warned about the potential for “surprises” – rapid and unpredicted changes. Snowballs in Rome, declining Arctic ice in winter and the interest of China and other non-Arctic countries in the region’s resources could all be seen from this perspective.

But are they really surprising, given the endless human ability to interfere with natural systems? In the 1980s, Barry Lopez wrote Arctic Dreams. In his Arctic research travel, he spent time with the Inuit, and what he was told resonates today:

“They call, us with a mixture of incredulity and apprehension, ‘the people who change nature’. And indeed what we now decide to do in the north with their land has a certain kind of frightening irrevocability about it.” (Barry Lopez, 1986)