The comments by Tiejun Ling, deputy director of China’s Arctic and Antarctic Administration, came as a record three Chinese icebreakers traversed icy seas near the North Pole, another sign of China’s growing interest.
“We have common interests and ways to further develop cooperation. We should develop a system where Russian and Chinese scientists can visit each other’s scientific stations,” Ling said during last week’s visit to Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Ling is a senior Communist Party member of China’s top polar affairs body.
The August 21 visit highlights rising tensions over China and Russia’s activities in the High North, where NATO countries are warily watching for signs of deepening cooperation following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which Beijing has not condemned. Relations between Russia and NATO have deteriorated rapidly since the invasion.
According to information published by the High North Centre of Nord University in Norway, in Svalbard Ling discussed with the Russian side the addition of Chinese representatives to the research station located in the Russian mining settlement of Barentsburg. Significantly, China has its own research center in Svalbard – the Yellow River Station in the Norwegian research settlement of Ny-Ålesund.
“China has always participated in Arctic affairs in accordance with international law and is committed to maintaining close cooperation with all parties, including Norway,” the Chinese embassy in Oslo told Newsweek.
“The main purpose of China’s scientific research in the Arctic is to promote environmental protection and ecology and better cope with global challenges such as climate change. It is quite normal for scientists from different countries to conduct international cooperation in polar research, and there is no need for this exaggerated interpretation,” the embassy spokesperson said.
Marc Lanteigne, a professor of political science at UiT, Norwegian Arctic University, in Tromsø in the Norwegian Arctic, described Sino-Russian cooperation as “definitely a challenge”.
“China is very interested in all possibilities for new research in the Arctic. Russia wants to develop its own research network and include China in it in order to legitimize its activities,” Lanteigne said.
Growing security concerns in the region, including from Norway, have meant that China’s research position in Svalbard is coming under increasing scrutiny. This raises concerns in Beijing about a potential loss of access to research resources.
Türkiye also wants a piece of the Arctic pie
But the Chinese are not the only ones interested in the Arctic. In July this year, Turkish scientists also visited Svalbard. During the meeting, they discussed plans to open a new scientific and research base for BRICS members in another Russian settlement, the nearly abandoned town of Pyramiden.
It could also be seen as a potential challenge to sovereign Norway, which claims overall control over scientific research in the archipelago, where “war purposes” are prohibited under the treaty. The 1920 treaty offers signatories, including Russia and China, economic and other access.
China has also long disagreed with what it sees as Norway’s research restrictions on activities in the archipelago and has sought greater access to the Arctic as part of its growing strategic and economic interests.
“The visit of the Turkish delegation really highlights that Russia wants to create an alternative research network in Svalbard,” Lanteigne said.
Chinese in Barentsburg
Chinese polar officials were welcomed in Barentsburg by Alexander Makarov, director of AARI, and agreed to begin preparations for joint research projects in the region, with further meetings to be held in the autumn, High North News reported.
“Chinese scientists have been invited to participate in the work of the Russian Arctic scientific expedition to Spitsbergen,” the media reported, referring to the main island of Svalbard, where Barentsburg is located. They were to conduct research aboard a Russian floating ice station. Representatives of the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) were also present at the meeting.
As a sign of reciprocity, the Chinese polar authorities invited the Russians to participate in the expedition of the icebreaker PRIC Xue Long 2.
Newsweek revealed based on publicly available GPS data that the icebreaker also visited Murmansk in northwestern Russia.
China calls itself a “Near Arctic State” and claims to be a key stakeholder in Arctic affairs – despite the East Asian country’s territory being 900 miles from the Arctic Circle.
In its updated Arctic strategy in July 2024, the US Department of Defense called for increased military presence, intelligence capabilities and cooperation between Washington and its Western allies in the region.
The visit to Barentsburg comes less than a month after Chinese scientists celebrated their scientific achievements in the Arctic, marking the 20th anniversary of China’s Yellow River (Huanghe) research center.
Text published in the American magazine “Newsweek”. Title, lead and subtitles by the editors of “Newsweek Polska”.
