A summer insect that talks of ice
Some recent developments in China's Arctic policy
There is a flippant Chinese proverb - 夏蟲不可以語於冰者，篤於時也 - that roughly translates to “a summer insect cannot talk of ice, it knows nothing beyond its own season.” China is not an Arctic state. Its northernmost city of Harbin lies 2,300 kilometres from the Arctic Circle. But when it comes to polar matters, China is far from being an unwitting summer insect. It has become an Arctic heavyweight in its own right, through a combination of formidable scientific commitment and strategic investments. China cares about the Arctic - and its polar policies continue to develop in new directions.
China’s icebreaker fleet
In July, China’s growing icebreaker fleet welcomed its fourth and newest member. The Ji Di (极地) is handled by the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources. It is a drone-carrying research vessel that will perform environmental monitoring and surveying in ice areas of the Bohai Bay and Yellow Sea, but also in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters.
Promptly put to good use, the Ji Di departed from Qingdao in August to operate in waters north of Alaska, and then continue its summer voyage into the Central Arctic Ocean. This summer, China for the first time simultaneously dispatched three of its icebreakers to the Arctic. The Xue Long 2 (雪龙 2) and Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di (中山大学极地) passed through the Bering Strait in July, and have been operating in Arctic waters since.
The expansion of China’s icebreaker fleet was envisioned and prioritised over other forms of polar research funding in the 14th Five-Year-Plan. The vessels are a tangible representation of the country’s scientific ambitions, and have become a token of pride among interested segments of the Chinese population. Beijing now aims to be the second country after Russia to send manned submarines to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
Photo: The Xue Long 2, China’s most modern and first home-grown polar icebreaker, on a visit to Hong Kong in April 2024 (Source: China Daily)
While China’s ice-breaking vessels are primarily designed for scientific and research purposes, the U.S. Ministry of Defense believes that the Xue Long 2 and its sister ships may be used to conduct “dual-use research with intelligence or military applications in the Arctic” - or, in other words, to scan the northern waters for concealed vessels of the U.S. Naval Submarine Force. American anxieties over China’s Arctic presence have accumulated in recent years. Washington is worried that Beijing might optimise its underwater radio connectivity technology, improving the stealth of communications between its surface and underwater vessels, thus improving China’s submarine-based nuclear capabilities.
Nuclear deterrence concerns also play a large role in Washington’s recent political pressuring of Greenland to abstain from entering into cooperation formats with Chinese firms. The Pittufik Air Base, which is located on the island, is home to a space warning squadron that detects and tracks nuclear missiles aimed at the North American continent, and also the 23rd Space Operations squadron, which manages the global satellite control network of the U.S. military.
China in Arctic energy and shipping
China’s icebreakers were not the only ships from the country to have operated in Arctic waters this summer. Two Chinese container ships, the Xin Xin Hai 1 and its sister ship, the Xin Xin Hai 2, travelled along the entirety of Russia’s Northern Sea Route into the Baltic Sea to avoid the Houthi-beset Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The NSR had seen its first regular container service between Europe and Asia in 2023. In line with Sino-Russian plans to operationalise the NSR for regular commercial container shipping (as restated during Putin’s May 2024 visit to Beijing), Chinese container ships are now more often seen in Arctic waters, and have recently even crossed paths.
China also remains a major client of Russian LNG. The China National Petroleum Corporation holds a 20% share in Novatek’s Yamal LNG, which matches the stake held by TotalEnergies. In the summer, Chinese-chartered LNG vessels again made multiple roundtrips between Yamal and the Chinese mainland. China also continues to import huge quantities of Russian crude oil via the NSR, including in sanctioned tankers - even though some of the summer shipments were delayed by thick ice cover. The frequency and quantities of shipments are expected to make another leap forward, should Russia’s Vostok-Oil project go online as planned.
On balance, both Sino-Russian shipping along the Russian north-east, as well as Chinese commercial shipping along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route, can be expected to expand in the coming years. In July, China’s NewNew Shipping and Rosatom launched an Arctic express cargo line, which will see cargo moved by rail from Moscow to the Russian port of Arkhangelsk. From there, it will then be shipped across the Arctic and North Pacific oceans to ports in China. The joint venture expects to develop a fleet of five ice-classed box ships, which will launch in 2027 and operate along the NSR all year round. With its commercial and research shipping in Arctic waters increasing, China in July launched its own maritime safety information broadcasting service for the Arctic. The service will provide real-time monitoring of sea ice and weather forecast information, as was reported by The People’s Daily (人民日报).
Chinese media reporting on Arctic security
Beyond the shipping realm, China also made use of the summer months to develop positions on various Arctic security and military matters, and to proliferate them via its official state media. The military news branch of the People’s Daily ran a comparatively subdued critique of the U.S. DoD’s newly released Arctic strategy. While America is being accused of militarising the Arctic, thus turning “the region into an arms arena, deepening regional military confrontation, and negatively impacting regional security and stability”, the article also points out that U.S. positions are not shared by all other Arctic NATO states. The alliance, the piece suggests, is not to be seen as a monolith on Arctic matters. Beijing thus evidently still hopes to restore good relations with a wide range of Arctic stakeholders, in a continuation of its long-standing policy line to reduce its regional dependencies on Russia. The same spirit also marked Chinese reporting on Li Qiang’s September talks with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, including in a longer piece in the Guangming Ribao (光明日报).
Characteristically, other recent Chinese articles on Arctic security were more blistering in tone. A notable article from the Beijing Ribao (北京日报) on the U.S. Coast Guard presented the force as a de facto fifth military branch. The polar icebreakers commissioned by the USCG should, according to the paper, be seen as military vessels, employed to compete over the Arctic and Antarctica. The People’s Daily criticised U.S. investment plans for the Arctic, citing multiple American experts on the alleged infeasibility of Washington’s Arctic plans. Turning towards the European Arctic, the same paper also discussed Scandinavian plans for a new military transport corridor across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland in light of NATO’s efforts to “strengthen its military presence in the Arctic.” The paper in September also took aim at the Canadian Navy, which it also accused of “advancing the militarisation of the Arctic”.
Photo: Chinese and Russian bombers fly near Alaska in July (Source: NORAD)
In late July, the North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepted two Chinese Xian H-6K bombers and two Russian Tu-95MS Bear bombers - both nuclear capable - near Alaska. Reporting on the instance in Chinese state media was limited, but the Beijing Ribao made space for a brief column to present the official response by Colonel Zhang Xiaogang 张晓刚, the Deputy Director of the Information Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense. The paper then ran an editorial that accused Washington of “overreacting” over the air exercise, unfavourably comparing the manoeuvre to American overflights near Hainan and above the South China Sea. The Guangming Ribao reviewed foreign media responses to China’s participation in Russia’s “Okean-2024” exercises. The same paper also proudly presented a new generation of unmanned underwater submersibles developed by Harbin Engineering University (哈尔滨工程大学) that will likely be employed in the Arctic Ocean.
China and international regulations on deep-sea mining
In other news of importance to the Arctic, China again featured prominently in arguments around the future of international deep-sea mining regulations. As a reminder, Chinese corporations produce ever-larger numbers of climate-friendly technologies, such as electric cars, solar panels, and batteries. These products already now drive up to half of the country’s economic growth - and their production generally requires critical minerals, such as nickel, cobalt, or manganese. Given stark limitations on its deposits at home, China has long relied on importing minerals from abroad. But under the more security-minded Xi, Beijing has become less trusting of the reliability of international supply chains for its minerals.
The idea to hoover polymetallic nodules off seabeds at scale has become particularly attractive not only to Western corporations, but to Chinese policy planners as well. Stemming from international waters, beyond the sovereign reach of individual states, a steady inflow of metals from the oceans could remedy China’s supply security woes.
At the diplomatic level, Beijing has for that reason advanced a very permissive regulatory approach to deep-sea mining. To this end, it has spent the best part of a decade expanding its influence within the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a body under UNCLOS that sets legal criteria for the economic exploitation of the seabed. It has become the authority’s largest donor (albeit at a measly $1.8 million per year, veritable peanuts compared to the multi-trillion dollar consequences of the ISA’s decision-making). China also holds the most licenses for mining projects in international waters, and in 2023 obstructed an attempt by twenty-five states to impose a general moratorium on deep-sea mining.
At its annual session held in Jamaica in August, members of the ISA gathered to elect the agency’s next Secretary-General. The lead-up to the election had been marred by contestation, as the two candidates for the job, Michael Lodge and Leticia Carvalho, presented divergent visions for the mid-term future of deep-sea mining.
Photo: Opening of the ISA’s 29th annual session in August (Source: ISA)
Lodge, who has been the ISA’s Secretary-General since 2016, proposed to wrap up the agency’s formulation of environmental rules as soon as possible, with the aim of launching industrial-scale mining in the Pacific in the autumn of the ongoing year. Carvalho, an oceanographer and former oil regulator, advocated of a more careful approach. Given the significant environmental risks of deep-sea mining, as well as the glaring gaps in humanity’s scientific understanding of the seabeds, Carvalho proposed to err on the side of caution - and to extend environmental evaluation procedures.
Carvalho’s candidacy was supported by the more environmentally-minded ISA member states. Lodge, on the other hand, was accused by his opponents of misappropriating agency funds for campaign trips to countries where his more industry-friendly approach might fall on sympathetic ears. One of the latter countries visited by Lodge in June was China, where he met with the Vice-Minister for Natural Resources, Sun Shuxian.
Even if the visit had further boosted China’s support for Lodge’s candidacy, however, the election was eventually won by Carvalho. The path forward for launching global deep-sea mining projects thus now appears much longer than initially expected. Regardless, Chinese companies are waiting in the wings to begin their operations as soon as environmental regulators give a green light.
For the Arctic, the impact of these developments is indirect, but consequential. Most of the seabeds of the Central Arctic Ocean are not international, and thus open in theory to all states, but rather fall under the jurisdiction of coastal states. The likelihood that outside actors, such as China, could launch deep-sea mining operations in the High North is quite low.
However, the Arctic littoral states themselves are increasingly keen to exploit metal reserves on ‘their’ parts of the seabed - in many cases, such as that of Norway, to reduce an alleged dependency on China’s global monopoly for the processing of critical metals.
The ISA, where China plays a leading role in the voluntary absence of the United States, will set the perimeters for these plans. Even if China may thus not become an actual stakeholder in Arctic deep-sea mining, its shaping of international regulations will impact the future of the Arctic Ocean regardless.
Photo: Map of extended continental shelf claims in the Central Arctic Ocean, with unclaimed - or un-claimable - international waters in light blue (Source: EEA)
China and Svalbard
Finally, there has been an unusual amount of interest by the Chinese media in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago home to eleven international research stations, which has been governed since the 1920s under one of the world’s oldest and most stable treaty-based sovereignty regimes. The fascination with the archipelago by China’s media is likely a corollary of the rising interest of Chinese scientists and their political supporters. As Marc Lanteigne explains, “with Chinese research interests being curtailed elsewhere, including in Canada and Greenland, Svalbard is growing in importance for Chinese polar researchers.”
In April, new members of China’s very own Arctic research expedition arrived at the Yellow River station (黄河站) in Ny-Alesund. During the summer, around fifty Arctic scientists from China laboured on on-site projects in the fields of glaciology, terrestrial and marine ecology and space physics.
The Guangming Ribao in June ran a fascinating full-page feature on the geopolitics and history of Svalbard. Especially noticeable is the interpretation of Svalbard sovereignty that is presented in the article, which the author describes as “unresolved”.
Photo: Full-page scan of the June 30 edition of Guangming Ribao, with a dedicated piece on the Svalbard archipelago (Source: en.gmw.cn)
The piece also delves into the history of China’s interest in the islands, with the following paragraphs on its signing of the Svalbard treaty worth quoting in full:
“In 1919, the Bei Yang government represented China in the Paris Peace Conference. At the conference, the great powers ignored China's status as a victorious country and decided to transfer the rights and interests seized by Germany in Shandong to Japan, which aroused strong anger among the Chinese people and the May Fourth Movement broke out. When the peace treaty was signed more than a month later, Gu Weijun and other Chinese representatives chose to refuse to attend the ceremony. This is a bitter and indignant past.
The Bei Yang government had no interest in the Svalbard Islands at first. However, France, which signed the Svalbard Treaty in 1920, wanted to attract more countries to join in order to enhance its own voice. In 1925, under the constant urging of the French government, Duan Qirui, who had returned to power after several warlord melees, confirmed the contents of the treaty and signed it to join. Since then, with the changes in the international and domestic situation, this treaty was quickly forgotten by the Chinese people.Although it has gone through a tortuous process of obliteration and rediscovery of the historical facts of the signing, this "accidental planting" in 1925 eventually became one of the international legal bases for China to join Arctic research thereafter.”
Beyond this, the article also openly dismisses Norwegian and NATO concerns about Russian activities on Svalbard, and questions whether the alliance would consider an armed attack on the archipelago as cause for invoking Article 5.
In Norway, similar statements have been causing some trepidation, as the country grapples with how to design its future approach towards China - as well as persistent myths around the status of Svalbard, and a rise in global media attention not always matched by sufficient levels of insight. In a major study published in June, Andreas Østhagen of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute near Oslo took to dispelling some of these myths, and clarified that sovereignty over Svalbard is not at all “unresolved”, but firmly within the hands of the Norwegian state.
Photo: China’s Yellow River Station on Svalbard (Source: Thomas Nilsen)
Nevertheless, the Norwegian government in July called off a plan to sell the last privately owned piece of land on Svalbard, in order to prevent its acquisition by China. And as Chinese researchers on the archipelago visited the Russian-managed port town of Barentsburg to explore future cooperation options, the Norwegian police security service reported an increase of possible spying acts committed by Chinese tourists on the islands.
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