Near-Arctic Country: Verbal Gymnastics or Chinese Expansionism?
- Chennai Centre for China Studies
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
By Rohit KA and Dr. Adityanjee
Image Courtesy: The Economist
Introduction
In 2018 in its White paper on China’s Arctic policy China formally declared itself as a “Near-Arctic” State. The rhetoric about the near-Arctic state had been floated around by China since 2012-2013 onwards at the time of its initial application for an observer-ship in the Arctic Circle. This concept of China as a “near-Arctic country," raises a fundamental question: does this represent mere verbal gymnastics, a rhetorical strategy to gain legitimacy in a distant region, or does it signal deliberate Chinese expansionism? In terms of geography, China lies over 4000 kilometres from the Arctic Circle, with no territorial claims or coastline in the region. The term lacks any basis in international law, yet it cleverly enables Beijing to assert stakeholder status by referencing climate change impacts, scientific interests, and economic opportunities.
This article examines the distinction through the lens of China's investments in Iceland, Greenland, Arctic provinces of Canada and the Yamal LNG project in Russia and its Polar Silk Road initiative, demonstrating how these actions, facilitated by Russia, pose direct threats to NATO’s northern flank and maritime mercantile interests of other emerging economic powers. Drawing parallels to the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957, which contained Soviet influence through economic and military measures, the analysis outlines a structured response to safeguard critical Arctic security interests.
The rising strategic importance of the Arctic Region
Climate change has dramatically elevated the Arctic’s geopolitical significance. Rapid ice melt, projected to eliminate summer sea ice by 2035, opens new maritime pathways and exposes vast resources. The Northern Sea Route (NSR), running along Russia’s northern coast, reduces Asia-to-Europe shipping times by approximately 40% compared to traditional Suez Canal routes. This corridor facilitates access to trillions of dollars in oil, natural gas, rare earth minerals, and fisheries. Russia controls 52% of the Arctic coastline, positioning it as the dominant regional power. However, Western sanctions following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine severely restricted Moscow’s energy exports and financial access, creating vulnerabilities.
China's “no-limits" partnership filled this gap by providing capital for investment, markets in exchange for NSR usage rights, and technical expertise. The Yamal LNG project, operational since 2017 on Russia’s Yamal Peninsula, exemplifies this dynamic. China’s China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Silk Road Fund secured a 20% stake with investments exceeding $12 billion, enabling annual shipments of over 80 ice-class tankers escorted by vessels such as the Xue Long 2. These operations secure China’s energy supplies while channeling revenues back to Russia for Northern Fleet enhancements, including submarines and missile systems proximate to NATO borders.
Russia’s enabling role in China’s Arctic Strategy
Russia’s cooperation fundamentally amplifies China’s Arctic presence, transforming rhetorical positioning into operational capabilities through four interconnected mechanisms. The Yamal LNG project serves as the cornerstone. China’s acquisition of a 20% stake illustrates this enabling dynamic in concrete terms.
This process, leading to China’s 20% ownership in Yamal LNG, unfolded through deliberate, multi phase negotiations between 2013 and 2017, reflecting strategic alignment amid Russia’s post-Crimea isolation and China’s energy diversification needs. Initially, Russia’s state-owned Novatek proposed the $27 billion project in 2013 to develop three trains producing 16.5 million tons of LNG annually from the Yamal Peninsula’s remote gas fields. Facing Western financing barriers due to sanctions, Novatek sought non-Western partners. In July 2014, China’s CNPC signed a landmark 20-year sales agreement for 3.7 million tons of LNG annually, establishing a commercial trust. This paved the way for equity investment talks. By September 2105, three Chinese entities, CNPC (9.9%), Silk Road Fund (9.9%), and China Gas Group (1%), committed to the 20% stake, injecting approximately $12.5 billion in phased capital: initial equity infusions for engineering, procurement, and construction contracts, followed by operational funding.
Total SA (France) provided technical expertise with 20%, while Novatek retained 50.1%. Beijing also financed two icebreaking LNG carriers (Arc 7 class) at China’s Jiangnan Shipyard, essential for year-round NSR navigation. Production commenced in December 2017 after pipeline construction across permafrost and ice-resistant port development at Sabetta. This structured entry, sales pact first, equity second, and infrastructure third, minimised Beijing’s risk while securing long-term NSR precedence and discounted gas.
This foundation enables Russia’s role across four key dimensions. First, it provides unparalleled physical access, with Moscow’s NSR authority and Yamal hosting offering China operational footholds unattainable independently. This supports Beijing‘s icebreaker fleet expansion to eight or more vessels by 2030 through authentic Arctic testing. Second, Russia serves as a sanctions evasion conduit, with China acting as Yamal’s primary customer to acquire output at preferential rates and channel funds through joint vehicles.
Third, technological exchange advances China’s polar proficiency, as Russian icebreaker designs and extreme-environment validation inform nuclear-powered vessels optimized for under-ice transit. Fourth, military coordination delivers protective cover through joint Barents and Bering Sea patrols and 2024-2026 anti-submarine exercises, allowing China's intelligence collection near Alaska and Norway with minimal unilateral exposure. Yamal LNG integrates these elements, i.e., the Chinese capital generates over $5 billion annually for Russia’s military buildup, while NSR operations establish a dual-use logistical foundation. Thus, the “near Arctic country” designation evolves from verbal gymnastics into hybrid expansionism.
China’s Arctic Strategy and Facilitation by Iceland
China has built a palatial embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland worth $250 million with only 5 accredited diplomats. This building has four stories and can accommodate 500 people. China has negotiated a free trade area with Iceland, the first with any European nation. Former Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao even paid a state visit to Iceland for two full days in 2012. Other Chinese ministers and officials have also been very active in Iceland with bilateral visits and cultural events. In 2010, Huang Nubo, a “poetry loving” Chinese billionaire and former communist party official visited Iceland to meet his former classmate Hjorleifur Sveinbjornsson, a Chinese translator with whom he had shared a room in 1970s in the Peking University. He expressed his intense love for poetry and put up $ one million to finance Iceland-China Cultural Fund and organized two poetry summits, the first one in Reykjavik in 2010 and the second one in Beijing in 2011. In 2012, Huang Nubo and his Beijing based company, the Zhongkun group offered to buy 300 sq km of Icelandic land ostensibly to develop a holiday resort with a golf course. This Chinese billionaire wanted to pay $7 million to an Icelandic sheep farmer to take over the land and build a $100 million 100-room five-star resort hotel, luxury villas, an eco-golf course and an airstrip with 10 aircrafts. A state-owned Chinese bank reportedly offered the Zhongkun group a soft loan of $ 800 million for this project. The deal was blocked by the Icelandic Interior Minister who asked many pertinent questions but reportedly got no answers. Huang would not take no for an answer and submitted a revised bid for leasing the land for $ one million instead of outright purchase. He made an unbelievable assertion that there is a market demand for peace and solitude: “Rich Chinese people are so fed up with pollution that they would like to enjoy the fresh air and solitude of the snowy Iceland”. China’s attempts to buy land for dubious purposes in Iceland since 2011, were finally blocked in 2018 by the Icelandic PM. Despite some setbacks, China persisted into buying into the Icelandic economy. China signed a bilateral energy accord with Iceland in 2012 and a bilateral free trade agreement in 2015. Chinese investment of $1.2 billion into the Icelandic economy during 2012-17 constituted almost 6% of its GDP during that period. China Iceland economic cooperation continues with the Icelandic President visiting China in 2025.
Specific vulnerabilities in NATO’s northern flank
NATO’s northern flank, which encompasses Norway, Iceland, and Greenland, constitutes the alliance’s essential northern bulwark against incursions, directing 90% of transatlantic reinforcements via the GIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom). Post-Cold War priorities shifted southward, but the Russia-Ukraine war refocused the world’s attention northward, where China’s involvement introduces actor risks. Norwegian waters adjacent to Svalbard experienced escalated Russian patrols financed by Yamal proceeds, converting fishing disputes into potential flashpoints. The GIUK gap faces NSR-augmented threats from Russian Yasen-class submarines equipped with hypersonic missiles and potentially enhanced by Chinese sensors, capable of swiftly interrupting US supply lines. Greenland’s rare earth reserves, vital for F-35 platforms and drones, attract Chinese investment bids reminiscent of South China Sea dependencies.
NATO’s asset limitations intensify these vulnerabilities; fewer than 130 P-8 Poseidon aircraft serve the alliance, contrasting with expanding Sino-Russian icebreaker fleets. Civil-military fusion complicates threat assessment, as Svalbard’s Yellow River Station is officially scientific, which likely contributes data to joint operations. Yamal funding bolsters the Northern Fleet, whose 2026 exercises simulated (Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom) disruptions in the GIUK gap. These dynamics compress Norwegian frontiers, reduce transatlantic logistics, and expose high-technology supply chains to compromise.
China has built a satellite station in northern Sweden and invested in Finland as part of its Polar Silk Road initiative. China’s growing interest in the Canadian Arctic (40% of Canadian landmass) is a calculated move to access and control the abundant deposits of oil, gas and minerals. In 2017, Chinese icebreaker Xue Long (aka Snow Dragon) made its first passage through the Northwest Passage which Canada recognizes as its internal waters. In 2013, China acquired Nexen, a Calgary-based oil and gas company for $15.1 billion that transferred a portion of Alberta’s oil-sands wealth to China. China is seriously focusing on investments into mining in Canadian Arctic provinces.
Parallels to the Eisenhower Doctrine
The situation in the Arctic has a very similar semblance to the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957, which countered Soviet Middle Eastern expansion through US economic aid and military deployments. Yamal LNG financing mirrors historical aid and military deployments. Yamal LNG financing mirrors historical Soviet proxy support, sustaining Russian capabilities against NATO. NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit stressed interoperability, yet progress lags. John Mearsheimer’s structural realism accounts for this pattern: revisionist states like China leverage institutional gaps, such as the Arctic Council’s non-binding nature, to erode rivals’ maritime dominance. Without response, the Polar Silk Road, which extends China’s Belt and Road Initiative northward, links Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic challenges while contesting India’s Arctic interests.
Wider Geopolitical and Security Implications
Sino-Russian Arctic alignment produces broad consequences. For India, NSR development reduces Suez reliance and heightens rare earth risks. Quadrilateral partners, Australia and Japan face similar Belt and Road pressures. Indigenous communities in Svalbard and Greenland present mining’s environmental costs. By 2030, Sino-Russian control of 80% NSR traffic may enable hybrid tactics, which include cyberattacks on Nordic grids and militia activities in disputed zones. China’s strategic interest in the Arctic goes beyond economics and science. Chinese emphasis has been to develop dual use facilities in the Arctic region under the garb of “Polar Silk Road” spun out of the Belt and Road Initiative. From a security perspective, the most troubling event was the Chinese attempt to buy a defunct US naval base in Greenland and attempt to build or refurbish the airport outside Nuuk, Greenland’s capital and two other airfields for $550 million. China wanted Greenland to provide exclusive rights to its rare earth metals in lieu of the fiscal investments. Under one such proposal, China would invest $2.5 billion in an iron mine and would bring 5000 Chinese construction and mining workers whereas the population of the capital of Greenland, Nuuk is only 15000. The Danish government which handles the foreign and defense policy of the self-governing Greenland openly expressed its concern at China’s interest in the autonomous territory of 57,000 population and vast array of natural resources. The US government and the government of Denmark finally blocked Chinese investment in Greenland in dual use facilities. Chinese investments focusing on mineral extraction, including rare earth minerals, iron, copper and uranium totaled $2.0 billion, constituting 12% of the GDP of Greenland during 2012-17. China has also insidiously inserted itself into the Arctic governance by creating parallel institutions to the Arctic Council. The day China-Iceland bilateral FTA was signed in 2013, the Icelandic President also announced the creation of the Arctic Circle Assembly, an annual meeting in Reykjavik on Arctic governance open to all interested states and non-state actors, regardless of their country of origin or their coastal status. It has grown from 1200 participants in 2013 to more than 2500 people from more than 70 countries last year.
Analysis - Verbal gymnastics or strategic expansionism?
China has tried to distinguish itself from the rest of the Arctic Council Observers as a “Near Arctic State” on the perniciously clever but fallacious grounds that the northernmost part of China in the province of Manchuria (the Amur River) is only one thousand miles south to the Arctic circle. The fallacy is that Manchuria was a separate, independent country that was annexed by China after the Communist take-over. Manchus had ruled over China for centuries during the reign of Manchu dynasty and the last Chinese Emperor Pu Yi was the last Manchu emperor. Chinese ownership and annexation of Manchuria (Manchu-Kuo) is still not settled. A disputed territory cannot be used by China to make a geo-political claim for being a “Near Arctic State”.
China’s Arctic engagement demands scrutiny to determine whether it constitutes mere verbal gymnastics or represents substantive expansionism with far-reaching strategic intent. At the surface level, the “near-Arctic country” designation appears as a rhetorical innovation, which is a plausible justification for involvement in climate research, shipping optimization, and resource access, consistent with Beijing's global stakeholder narrative. The Arctic Policy white paper emphasizes cooperative themes, which positions China as a responsible actor contributing scientific data and infrastructure without territorial ambitions. Yamal LNG competition, with NSR usage reflecting pragmatic logistics rather than geopolitical maneuvering.
Deeper examination reveals expansionist underpinnings that transcend rhetoric. The structured progression, from 2014 sales agreements to 2015 equity acquisitions and 2017 operationalization, demonstrates premeditated market entry designed to embed China within Russia’s Arctic ecosystem. This yields multifaceted gains, which include energy security through discounted long-term contracts, technological maturation via Icebreaker deployment, and strategic positioning through dual-use infrastructure.
Russia’s enabling role amplifies these outcomes, converting economic footholds into military-relevant capabilities. Joint patrols and exercises signal interoperability beyond commercial necessity, while civil-military fusion principles are embedded in China’s national functions. NATO’s northern flank vulnerabilities, particularly GIUK Gap exposure and Norwegian frontier pressures, emerge not as unintended byproducts but as foreseeable consequences of Sino-Russian alignment, evidenced by 2026 Northern Fleet maneuvers funded by Yamal revenues.
Strategic realism provides the analytical framework; as a revisionist power, China exploits Arctic governance asymmetries to deny Western maritime primacy, mirroring the South China Sea island building activities. The Polar Silk Road integrates with the Belt and Road initiative objectives, which creates contiguous Eurasian dominance from the Indo-Pacific to the Euro-Atlantic theaters. Quantitative indicators reinforce this assessment: China’s icebreaker fleet expansion from three in 2018 to a projected eight-plus by 2030, 80+ annual NSR transits, and $90 billion in Arctic deals since 2013 far exceed scientific or commercial thresholds.
Verbal gymnastics or dense rhetoric may initiate entry, but sustained investment, technological assimilation, and military coordination confirm expansionism. The “near-Arctic country” label functions less as standalone rhetoric than as vanguard terminology normalizing hybrid power projection in a melting strategic frontier.
Conclusion
China’s "near Arctic country" claim transcends rhetoric; Yamal LNG investments, the Polar Silk Road, increasing investments into Iceland, and Russian support drive expansionism that endangers NATO’s northern flank, echoing Eisenhower-era threats. The Arctic demands proactive hybrid countermeasures, for instance, Supreme Allied Commander Europe briefings by Q2 2026, NSR sanctions at Vilnius + 3, and modeling with Joint Force Command Norfolk. Inaction allows the encirclement by the Polar Silk Road. As the Northern Sea route becomes more viable with melting of Arctic Ice, China as an expansionist and revisionist power is making geopolitical claims on the Arctic Circle mineral and marine wealth. India also has serious stakes in this opening of the Arctic Circle and the Northern Sea route for legitimate mercantile and commercial reasons. India can not be a passive spectator in Chinese great game in the Arctic of resource monopolization.
References:
The Dragon Covets the Arctic
by Dr. A. Adityanjee March 2013
Full text: China’s Arctic Policy
Updated: Jan 26,2018 1:50 PM Xinhua
China and the “Near-Arctic:” An Opportunity Lost Over 150 Years Ago
Barry Scott Zellen
Date Published: September 5, 2019
New Arctic Doctrine for India: A Proposed Blueprint
By Dr A. Adityanjee 2021
The Dragon Roams the Arctic
By Dr A. Adityanjee 2021
(Dr. Adityanjee is the President of the Council for Strategic Affairs and is based in the US. Rohit KA is training fellow in Strategic Studies. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of C3S.)
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