The Economist Asia Edition - April 14, 2018

The EconomistApril 14th 2018 27

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W

HEN the occupants of “Snowpanda

House” in Ahtari zoo, Finland, were

first allowed to play in the open air in mid-

February, they bounded out and rolled in

the white stuff. Xi Jinping, China’s presi-

dent, had said the furry animals would act

as “messengers of friendship” when he

promised them to Finland during a visit

last year en route to America. On the same

trip Mr Xi used a refuelling stop in Alaska

to butter up his hosts there, too. The Ameri-

can north was “a mythical, almost mystical

place”, a local spokesperson quoted him as

saying—a bit “like a Shangri-La”.

Mr Xi has been showing a growing in-

terest in Arctic countries. In 2014 he re-

vealed in a speech that China itself wanted

to become a “polar great power”. Last year

he met leaders from seven of the eight

members of the Arctic Council, a group of

northern countries that admitted China

and four other Asian states as observers in

2013. In January the Chinese government
      published its first policy document outlin-
      ing its Arctic strategy. The paper referred to
      China as “a near-Arctic nation” (never
      mind that its most northerly settlement is
      no closer to the Arctic than Berlin is). It also
      linked China’s Arctic plans with Mr Xi’s
      Belt and Road Initiative, a scheme for
      building infrastructure abroad to improve
      links between Asia, Africa and Europe.
      China’s ambitions are fuelled by a wide
      range of interests. It wants access to the
      Arctic for its researchers so they can work

tic waters. China is excited by this pos-

sibility (its media speak of an “ice silk

road”). In the coming decades such routes

could cut several thousand kilometres off

journeys between Shanghai and Europe.

Sending ships through the Arctic could

also help to revive port cities in China’s

north-eastern rustbelt, notes Anne-Marie

Brady, the author of a recent book, “China

as a Polar Great Power”. China is thinking

of building ports and other infrastructure

in the Arctic to facilitate shipping. State-

linked firms in China talk of building an

Arctic railway across Finland.

Chinese analysts believe that using Arc-

tic routes would help China strategically,

too. It could reduce the need to ship goods

through the Malacca Strait, a choke-point

connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Much of China’s global shipping passes

through the strait. It worries endlessly

about the strait’s vulnerability to block-

ade—for example, should war break out

with America.

There are no heated territorial disputes

in the Arctic, but there are sensitivities, in-

cluding Canada’s claim to the North-West

Passage, a trans-Arctic waterway that

America regards as international—ie, be-

longing to no single state. China does not

want to be seen as a clumsy interloper.

One point of the policy document was to

allay fears that China might muscle its way

into the Arctic as it has in the South China

Sea. The paper stresses that China will play

by international rules and co-operate with

the Arctic Council (its members include

polar great-powers to reckon with: Ameri-

ca and Russia).

Plenty of non-Arctic countries, includ-

ing European ones, have similar dreams.

But China is “by far the outlier” in terms of

the amount of money it has pledged or al-

ready poured into the region, says Marc

Lanteigne of Massey University in New

out how melting ice affects weather pat-

terns, among other things. Their findings

could help China devise responses to its

problems with air pollution and water

scarcity. China is also keen to tap into the

Arctic resources that will become easier to

exploit as the ice cap retreats. They include

fish, minerals, oil and gas. The region could

hold a quarter of the world’s as-yet-undis-

covered hydrocarbons, according to the

United States Geological Survey. Chinese

firms are interested in mining zinc, ura-

nium and rare earths in Greenland.

As the ice melts, it maybecome more

feasible for cargo ships to sail through Arc-

The Arctic

A silk road through ice

BEIJING

China explains its dreams of becoming a polar power

China

Also in this section

28 China’s attempt at Davos

North

Pole

Rotterdam

Athens

Moscow

Sea route

“One Road”

Land route

“One Belt”

Arctic

route

Kuala

Lumpur

Mombasa

Kolkata

Xi’an

Zhanjiang

Shanghai

Alaska

Greenland

Malacca

Strait

Suez Canal

Beijing

RUSSIA

CHINA

CANADA

FINLAND

DENMARK

To cap it all

Planned areas of infrastructure building