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Citation: Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen. “The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy:
How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?” Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 12, 2021, pp. 31–55.
http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v12.2440
Arctic Review on Law and Politics
Vol. 12, 2021, pp. 31–55
31
*Correspondence to: Christer Pursiainen, email: christer.h.pursiainen@uit.no
Peer-reviewed article
The Arctic and Africa in China’s
Foreign Policy: How Different Are
They and What Does This Tell Us?
Christer Pursiainen
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Chris Alden
London School of Economics
Rasmus Bertelsen
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Abstract
The article discusses China’s policies in and towards the Arctic and Africa within a comparative
perspective. To what extent is China’s policy adaptable to different conditions? What does this
adaptability tell us about China’s ascendant great-power role in the world in general? What is the
message to the Arctic and Africa respectively? The article concludes that China’s regional strate-
gies aptly reect the overall grand strategy of a country that is slowly but surely aiming at taking
on the role of leading global superpower. In doing so, Chinese foreign policy has demonstrated
exibility and adaptive tactics, through a careful tailoring of its so-called core interests and foreign
policy principles, and even identity politics, to regional conditions. This implies that regions seek-
ing autonomy in the context of great power activism and contestation should develop their own
strategies not only for beneting from Chinese investment but also in terms of managing depen-
dency on China and in relation to China and great power competition.
Keywords: China-Arctic, China-Africa, geoeconomics, geopolitics, regional regimes,
China’s sub-global identities, China’s roles
Responsible Editor: Øyvind Ravna, Faculty of Law, UiT The Arctic University of
Norway
Received: June 2020; Accepted: November 2020; Published: February 2021
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
32
Introduction
While regions such as the Arctic or Africa are important subjects of international
politics in their own right, sometimes to understand the challenges they face it is
appropriate to consider such regions in the context of, or even as targets of, much
larger global developments and drivers. One of these challenges is without doubt
the gradual but steady rise of China into the role of global superpower, which is key
to understanding the current and future roles of the Arctic and Africa in a broader
perspective.
The conduct of China’s foreign policy has been a subject of controversial polit-
ical and academic debate for over two decades. Is China purposefully challenging
the current global order, and will it eventually use its successful authoritarian state
capitalism to seek to shape the whole world in its image?1 Or is it a question of
an ascendant but benevolent great-power’s adaptation to the prevailing system, a
country striving to nd its global role in a win-win fashion, as China itself claims?2
Or perhaps China’s grand strategy is based on a nationalist urge to re-establish the
country’s strength and become a world power, while being particularly sensitive to
domestic threats of disorder and foreign interference?3
By focusing our discussion on the Arctic and Africa, we believe we are not only
able to contribute to debates on China’s rise in the global arena, but also able to
draw a much more nuanced picture of this transition than is usual in this context.
While the two regions chosen could have been replaced by many more, say, Europe,
Latin America, or the Middle East, we believe the Arctic and Africa reect illustra-
tive cases of what we call Chinese “sub-global” policies, allowing us to identify the
important causal drivers of China’s foreign policy in different contexts. Does China’s
policy in and towards these two regions reect a grand strategy, or does it consist of
a set of improvised regional foreign policy strategies without any common denom-
inators? What are the differences and similarities of the Arctic and Africa from the
Chinese perspective?
In addressing the above questions, we draw together some basic concepts of
international politics: geoeconomics and geopolitics; regimes and governance;
identities and roles. While not immersing ourselves in the inter-school Interna-
tional Relations (IR) debates, these three broad perspectives represent heuristic
angles that enable us to systematise the intertwined empirical issues for our com-
parative purposes.
Through the application of these concepts – in the spirit of analytic eclecticism4 –
to Chinese policies towards the Arctic and Africa, our approach becomes somewhat
more nuanced than the initial questions presuppose. In a sense, they tell three inter-
twined stories instead of one, and when brought together, they provide a holistic
comparative frame for understanding and explaining China’s policies in these two
increasingly important regions. Beside the empirical differences of these regions and
Chinese politics towards them, with our theoretical perspectives we can identify the
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
33
deeper logic in China’s behaviour, which, as we argue, shows a high degree of adap-
tive capability in different contexts.
By the same token, we will also highlight factors that seem to be essential for
individual regions and countries in their dealings with a rising great power whose
entrance, not only to the global arena, but also to regions far from its mainland, puts
pressure on existing regional and national rules and practices.
Geoeconomics and geopolitics
The most obvious starting point to study Chinese foreign policy in global and
regional settings is to approach it in terms of great power competition, emphasis-
ing rival interests and relative gains rather than cooperation. This means that any
assertion of global strategic intent by China must be weighed against the hegemonic
position of the U.S.,5 whose reach extends in geographic terms on a truly global scale
and, however contested, continues to wield enormous international structural pow-
er.6 While some argue that, barring the onset of a “system-making moment”, U.S.
structural power is likely to endure for the foreseeable future,7 others demur that the
country’s decline is manifesting to different and possibly accelerating degrees across
dimensions of structural power in the international system.8
From this power politics perspective, geoeconomics9 and geopolitics10 are two
appropriate disciplines to consider when examining China’s policies in the Arctic
and Africa from an interest and structural power politics perspective. China’s Belt-
and-Road-Initiative (BRI) especially goes far beyond economics and shapes the
country’s use of power and inuence in the international system.11 Geopolitics in
turn can be seen as a primitive (and earlier) version of realism, which focuses in
particular on great-power rivalries over geographic areas, including the military stra-
tegic dimension.
What then are the drivers of China’s geoeconomic and geopolitical interests in the
Arctic and Africa respectively, and why have they emerged? How is this manifested
in practice, and what kinds of strategies are used to advance these interests?
The Arctic
The Arctic has become more important than ever due to the effects of climate
change, which have in turn opened up the possibility to extract oil, gas and min-
eral resources hitherto inaccessible. Also, a mostly Russia-controlled shipping route
between Europe and Asia will be more usable due to the fact that it is considerably
shorter than routes used presently. It is little wonder then that China has also started
to pay attention to this area, formulating its strategic interests in its Arctic White
Paper published in 2018.12
The so-called core interests of China and its Communist Party, formally declared
in 2011,13 represent the country’s generic national interests. They are the red lines
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
34
of Chinese policy, both in the domestic and foreign policy domains. While the scope
of the core interests seem to be fuzzy, evolving and gradually broadening,14 they
emphasise the need for overall internal social stability. To this end, it is necessary to
ensure the sustainable economic and social development that forms the basis of the
continued legitimacy of the Communist Party. This in turn presupposes growing
economic power internationally.
China is the world’s second-largest, and soon-to-be largest, economy. It is the
world’s biggest importer of energy and raw materials, and is the largest trading coun-
try in the world. This trade overwhelmingly travels by sea. Securing and strengthening
Chinese international trade is paramount to the above-mentioned main core interest.
So where does the Arctic t into all this? In China’s Arctic White Paper,15 geoeco-
nomic interests are presented under the title “Utilising Arctic Resources in a Lawful
and Rational Manner”. These include four areas: participation in the development
of Arctic shipping routes; the exploitation of oil, gas, mineral and other non-living
resources; conservation and utilisation of sheries and other living resources; and
developing tourism resources.
While Chinese investments have been and to some extent continue to be wel-
come, from the Arctic countries’ perspective, the main concerns in turn have been
the perceived Chinese economic and political inuence gained through investments,
the environmental policy of China, and the social performance related to Chinese
companies.16 What then is the reality? The New York Times wrote in 2019 that “China
is trying to pour money into nearly every Arctic country”, describing the Arctic
as “Latest Arena for China’s Global Ambitions”,17 but the concrete success stories
are not very visible. True, several efforts have been – and continue to be – made by
Chinese companies to invest in land, mining licenses, tourism, or Arctic science
in Greenland, Northeast Iceland, Northern Norway, Finland, Sweden and less so
Canada and Alaska.18 A closer look at these reveals that it is more often a question of
exactly ambitions and tentative plans, perhaps some mining projects and scientic
cooperative centres, than any large-scale agreed-upon infrastructure projects. Except
in one country – Russia.
Thus, China’s main interest lies in the Russian Arctic and Far Eastern oil and nat-
ural gas resources, and the infrastructure that supports their transportation to China.
With energy security being a major concern for China, which currently imports vast
quantities across sea lanes controlled by the U.S. Navy, it is logical that the Sino-Rus-
sian energy partnership is deepening rapidly. The Northern Sea Route is a promising
seaway for Chinese seaborne trade, which China has already been “actively testing”19
for several years. Hence, Russian-Eurasian and Chinese BRI geoeconomic designs
are merging, where the Northern Sea Route may become the Polar/Ice Silk Road,
despite mutual Sino-Russian suspicions and the increasingly unequal relationship
between the two. To this effect, it has been argued that “China is aware of the strate-
gic importance Russia attaches to the Arctic, and Beijing has reassured Moscow that
it does not seek to challenge Russian interests in the region”.20
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
35
The above is closely related to enormous Chinese investments in Russian Arctic
and Far East energy production and transportation infrastructure, as well as long-
term sales agreements.21 The biggest investments in the Arctic thus far are related
to Russia’s Arctic gas liquefaction projects, especially the Yamal LNG, and related
gas pipeline projects that connect the Russian Arctic/Siberia and China, of which
the rst stage of development has already been implemented, while further stages
have been agreed upon. Indeed, it is argued that of all the Arctic countries, Russia
has shown the greatest commitment to the development of the region and has the
greatest potential for cooperation with China.22
Traditional geopolitics is the other side of the coin, and closely related to hard
security. China does not border the Arctic, and none of the “core interest” sensitive
regions and sea spaces under dispute between China and neighbouring countries
are in or near the Arctic. However, there are indirect Arctic security aspects related
to its core interests.23
The issue at stake obviously concerns the heightening superpower competition
between the potentially declining U.S. and rising Chinese powers. The Arctic mili-
tary dimension to Sino-American security relations is primarily in the domain of the
nuclear strategic balance. The Arctic region is the shortest ightpath for intercon-
tinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and long-range bombers between Eurasia and
North America. Hence, while the Arctic continues to play a key role in the strategic
balance between the U.S. and Russia (historically the USSR), the same goes for the
Sino-American nuclear strategic balance. The Cold War early warning radar Cobra
Dane in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands historically covered the Soviet Far East, but
also covers large parts of East Asia. Missile defence interceptor missiles that can
shoot down ICBMs – allegedly from North Korea – are based at Fort Greely near
Fairbanks, Alaska.
According to U.S. military speculations, China might want to operate its emerging
submarine-based nuclear deterrent in the Arctic Ocean, where it can benet both
from sea ice cover and short distances to North America. The U.S. Department of
Defense 2019 China report raises the topic of possible dual-use of civilian research
for hard security purposes: “Civilian research could support a strengthened Chinese
military presence in the Arctic Ocean, which could include deploying submarines to
the region as a deterrent against nuclear attacks.”24
The increasing Chinese interest in the Arctic has led to the U.S., the EU, and
individual Arctic countries raising concerns about China’s investments in European
critical infrastructure, especially in transport, energy and ICT.25 On the political
level, the U.S. has employed rather harsh language during the Trump administration,
making clear that the Arctic is not an island of peaceful cooperation between the
great powers in the race for global power. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo artic-
ulated this in May 2019 as follows: “China is already developing shipping lanes in
the Arctic Ocean. This is part of a very familiar pattern. Beijing attempts to develop
critical infrastructure using Chinese money, Chinese companies, and Chinese
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
36
workers – in some cases, to establish a permanent Chinese security presence. […]
Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with
militarisation and competing territorial claims?”26
Africa
China’s contemporary engagement in Africa is composed of two distinct phases.
The rst period ran from 1956 to 1982 and included diplomatic assistance, material
support and training for liberation movements, operating under the shadow of the
Sino-Soviet split and the drive to exert inuence.27 Concurrently, Taiwan’s previous
diplomatic recognition by many African states became another driver for China’s
efforts to displace Taipei, which is almost completed.
With the onset of Deng Xiaoping’s opening policies in the late 1970s, the gradual-
ist shift to a market-oriented approach in China’s domestic economy reverberated in
its ties with Africa. This was signalled during a tour of the continent by then Premier
Zhao Ziyang in 1982, during which he declared that aid programmes would hence-
forth be made on a “commercial basis”.28 This fundamentally changed the Chinese
approach towards the continent. Moreover, when Beijing launched its consolidation
of state-owned enterprises and concomitant “going out policy” in the 1990s, it laid
the foundation for the burgeoning economic ties.29
As was the case with the Arctic shortly thereafter, the search for energy security
took China to Sudan in 1995. The country was host to untapped oil reserves, but
also a twenty-year-long civil war and the recent promulgation of Western sanctions
against the regime in Khartoum. China National Petroleum Company (CNPC)
invested more than a billion USD, the largest foreign investment by China at the time,
and tied to a multi-million-dollar concessional loan from China ExIm Bank to build
local infrastructure using Chinese construction rms. The pattern for Chinese engage-
ment in Africa stemmed from this initial foray, with subsequent multi-billion so-called
resources-for-infrastructure deals in countries such as Angola, Nigeria and Ghana.
Flying the ag of “no domestic political interference” and cultivating the persona
of the leading developing state, China was able to capture the attention of African
leaders weary of the constraints of neo-liberal strictures on development, and wel-
coming an opportunity to diversify their economies. Chinese rms and migrants
increasingly established themselves across the continent in everything from sophisti-
cated telecommunications and port logistics systems to automobile assembly plants,
small farms and rural retail shops.30
China is Africa’s largest trading partner, with 204 USD billion in two-way trade
in 2018, the bulk of which is in the resource sector.31 Since 2012, Chinese banks
have begun to underwrite loans for regional transport infrastructure projects in East
Africa and the Horn of Africa (notionally linked to the BRI after 2017). Long coveted
by African governments as key in accelerating development through intra-regional
trade, these projects are being built by Chinese construction rms with the use of
local sub-contractors and labour, demonstrating the Chinese facility for adjusting
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
37
to African dynamics. At the same time, the fall in commodity prices in 2014 has
resulted in a serious debt crisis for many African countries.32 The role of China as a
leading creditor in Africa, and the way in which it handles this position, is coming
to dene how African governments understand Chinese claims to a development
partnership.
As to geostrategic/geopolitical interests, Beijing’s involvement in security affairs
runs in three parallel strands. The rst, starting in the late 1990s, is its expanding
role in multilateral preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping operations.33 To date,
China has elded over 30,000 peacekeepers to all African missions mostly in non-
combatant roles, but since 2012 also in combat-ready positions in Mali and South
Sudan (where it has suffered several losses) to demonstrate its commitment to pro-
viding security to the region. China has nanced peacebuilding through the UN and
the African Union (AU), including the announcement of one billion USD over a
ten-year period for the UN peacebuilding fund in 2015, as well as participated in the
joint anti-piracy naval task force off the coast of Africa since 2009.
The second strand concerns China’s expanding bilateral military relations, most
notably its establishment of a military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa in 2015
and the possibility of other such installations elsewhere in Africa. Hosting up to
10,000 personnel, Djibouti is China’s rst and so far only overseas military platform
and is linked to Chinese-nanced harbour rehabilitation and an industrial export
zone, as well as supporting the peacekeeping forces and anti-piracy operations. China
has stated that it is purely a “logistics base”. At the same time, it also allows China to
monitor all shipping movements through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It has
also been seen as a model for future Chinese foreign bases34 and a “microcosmos”
of China’s and U.S. geopolitical rivalry.35 In addition, China has several bilateral
defence ties with African countries, which vary from country to country, including
joint training exercises, arms sales, and even featuring joint military-led commercial
ventures in Zimbabwe and Sudan.36
Lastly, following the U.S. and Russian practice, there is a growing presence of
Chinese private security rms protecting Chinese commercial interests around the
continent, supplemented by the secondment of Chinese police to national govern-
ments.37
China’s active role in African affairs has not gone unnoticed, and the continent
shows signs of having become a geoeconomic battleeld for great powers. When the
U.S. President’s (now former) Security Advisor, John Bolton, unveiled the Trump
administration’s “New Africa Strategy” in December 2018,38 many commentators
noted that the strategy was actually more about China (and Russia) than Africa. As
Bolton put it, China and Russia both are great power competitors of the U.S., who
are rapidly expanding their nancial and political inuence across Africa. “They are
deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a com-
petitive advantage over the United States.” In so doing, China in particular “uses
bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt” to hold states in Africa
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
38
captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands. China’s quest to obtain more political,
economic, and military power in Africa poses “a signicant threat to U.S. national
security interests”.
The EU is much less alarmed than the U.S. While there are some geopolitical issues
between the EU and China in Africa as well, it has, however, been noted that in the
Horn in particular, Chinese and EU security interests are “largely complementary” as
both want to see a stable Horn of Africa devoid of conict, terrorism or piracy.39
Discussion
From the perspective of the history of rising powers, there is not much new in the
generic picture drawn above. In the late nineteenth century, Alfred Thayer Mahan40
emphasised, in relation to the then rising great-power U.S., the potential of a strong
merchant eet to increase a state’s power to implement its economic imperialism,
which in turn needs a strong navy. While the tools and instruments may be different
for China in today’s more globalised world, the basic code of conduct is this same
old geoeconomic/geopolitical maxim.
Another proponent of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder, in turn coined the term
“geographical pivot”,41 an area which as such is not a power centre but whose loca-
tion and situation in certain conditions has become essential for the great powers in
their bigger game. Both the Arctic and Africa (especially the Horn) t this denition
in the current era.
In its march towards securing control of these pivot areas, China is just at the
beginning. Its own efforts are not sufcient to achieve its ambitions, so it needs
recourse to alliances. Indeed, its preferred approach seems to be to ally with estab-
lished states as regional interlocutors to promote its increasingly shared interests
while limiting direct exposure as well as providing an opportunity to learn about
local complexities. China has had some success in allying with Russia in the Arctic.
In African countries, as South African power unexpectedly diminished over the last
decade, China has had to rely on several weaker authoritarian leaders instead.
The way in which China will reconcile the need to secure its geoeconomic inter-
ests in the Arctic and Africa with non-interference policies remains a challenge. A
further challenge concerns how the rise of the “new geopolitics”, led by a newly
assertive U.S. policy towards China as a strategic competitor and given expression in
the “debt diplomacy” debate out of Washington, will impact China-Africa ties.
Regimes and governance
China’s strategies towards the Arctic and Africa alike are based on and often legit-
imated not only through bilateral agreements, but also global and regional regimes
and governance systems. In short, international regimes are “principles, norms,
rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge”
in the absence of centralised public authority.42 For realists, regimes are a reection
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
39
of the great power relations related to the region or issue area, usually in terms of
formal institutions. For institutionalists, regimes have, or may have, their own causal
power, especially in overcoming cooperation problems through repeated reciprocal
positive tit-for-tat experiences that they facilitate. Constructivists are more inter-
ested in informal cultures, norms and behavioural rules that grow from interaction
and may enable a certain practice of interstate cooperation or conict. Governance,
in turn, a concept stemming from European studies some thirty years ago, empha-
sises the horizontal dimension of the issue. In the international context, governance
is not only about state-level cooperation, but also complicated multi-level structures,
including civil societies, private actors and scientic institutions, among others, in
complex and mixed settings.43
From the above perspectives, several new research questions arise. How and
through which mechanisms has China as a great power adapted to the existing gov-
ernance systems in the Arctic and Africa? What about the domestic legislation of the
regional states? Is China’s policy only adaptive, or does it try to inuence the existing
international regimes and domestic arrangements? Has China made efforts to create
new regimes or governance systems, more favourable to its perceived interests, in the
two respective geographical areas?
The Arctic
The study of regimes has often been preoccupied with their formation. In the
Arctic, this period occurred after the Cold War in the 1990s. The Arctic regime
formation, such as the Arctic Council (AC), did not follow the scheme of a hege-
monic actor imposing its order, but was instead a multivariate and dynamic pro-
cess comprising several stages, such as initial agenda-setting, negotiation period,
and operationalising–and depending on the right timing.44 The development that
started with the AC was followed by many more “Arctic governance” approaches,
where not only states were active but the indigenous minorities, private actors, civil
societies and the research community as well.45
China is rather outspoken in its Arctic White Paper46 in that it sees itself as an
actor having a right, and even an obligation, to participate in Arctic governance
and its further formulation, but not claiming any Arctic sovereignty. Its description
of this governance system focuses on global rather than regional regimes, however.
The strongest emphasis is therefore on those regimes where China is a full member
with a great-power status, namely the Charter of the UN, the 1982 UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as other lower-lever global treaties and
institutions (e.g. IMO).
This enables China – quite correctly – to point out that while states from out-
side the Arctic region do not have territorial sovereignty in the Arctic, “they do have
rights in respect of scientic research, navigation, overight, shing, laying of subma-
rine 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”. Following
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
40
the Spitsbergen Treaty from 1920, which the Republic of China joined in 1925, and
which China ‘rediscovered’ in the late 1990s,47 China also enjoys “the liberty of access
and entry to certain areas of the Arctic, the right under conditions of equality and,
in accordance with law, to the exercise and practice of scientic research, production
and commercial activities such as hunting, shing, and mining in these areas”. China
thus claims that it plays ‘a constructive role’ in the formulation of Arctic-related inter-
national rules. While it participates in Arctic affairs on the basis of existing rules and
mechanisms, it will also contribute to “the making, interpretation, application and
development of international rules regarding the Arctic”.48 In so doing, China says
it participates in safeguarding “the common interests of all nations and the interna-
tional community”. This in turn is said to be based on Chinese general foreign policy
principles of “respect, cooperation, win-win result and sustainability”.
The AC is also mentioned in positive terms in the Arctic White Paper, albeit only
in one paragraph. China’s urge to become more involved in Arctic governance actu-
ally started in 2007, when it became an ad hoc observer in the AC. Allegedly, its
further efforts to become a permanent observer were rst met by suspicion, espe-
cially on the part of Canada, Russia and the U.S. This in turn led China to enhance
its bilateral diplomacy with the Arctic States (the eight Member States of the AC),
which proved to be very successful. Canada and Russia remained most sceptical, but
the U.S. mediated, and China was approved in 2013 as part of a package of ve new
Observer states.49
In the context of enlarging the number of observers, new observer criteria were
elaborated, including the promise to comply with the AC procedures and principles,
contributing to the work of the AC, and reasserting the interest in being an observer
every four years.50 While China’s observer role in the AC has later created some con-
cern, it has been however reminded that the observer role does not provide access
to the council’s decision-making and the AC as such does not make important deci-
sions but its Member States. At the same time, it provides China to be legitimately
included in the generic debates about the Arctic.51
The case of the multilateral Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisher-
ies in the Central Arctic Ocean illustrates China’s long-term Arctic strategy. Apply-
ing the precautionary principle, the coastal states of the Arctic Council Canada,
Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States signed a declaration in
2015 to the effect that commercial shing should not start in the 2.8-million-square-
kilometer high seas area until adequate scientic research for sustainable shing
and management rules are in place. These states then called on major non-Arctic
shing countries to join negotiations for a binding agreement. In October 2018, the
above ve states, together with Iceland, China, Japan, South Korea and the Euro-
pean Union signed the agreement. Why did China agree? It has been argued that
for China the Arctic sheries is more than a shing issue. By joining the agreement,
China opened a new path to be involved in Arctic governance and at the same time
reduced concerns among Arctic states about China’s intentions.52 The role of the
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
41
agreement has been seen as piloting an emerging new Arctic governance model53
with China as a full member. At the same, it has been noted that no Chinese or any
other states’ vested interests were yet in play as there are currently no commercial
sheries in the area.54 In that sense, there were no immediate costs but several diplo-
matic and science-diplomacy benets for China.
The Arctic White Paper55 includes some remarks on China’s bilateral relations,
touching upon the issue of how it adapts to the domestic regimes in the region. It
explains how the activities of Chinese citizens, legal persons or other organizations
in the Arctic are supervised in accordance with the law to ensure that their activ-
ities accord not only with international law, but that they also respect the relevant
national laws on environmental protection, resource conservation, and sustainable
development. China furthermore carries out bilateral consultations on Arctic affairs
with all Arctic States.
Indeed, “Beijing has been improving bilateral communication with individual
states along the Arctic Circle” and “bilateralism has been an essential part of China’s
Arctic engagement”.56 In infrastructure investments, however, this has most often
taken place in a business-to-business fashion, where, in the initial phase, the direct
state level has been largely absent.
China’s way of presenting Arctic governance is logical, moving from global to
regional regimes and then domestic systems.57 However, the message is clear: China
has equal rights in the high sea areas, including the seabed. Moreover, China aspires
to become a norm-maker instead of remaining only a norm-taker in the region.58
While China has emphasised a win-win approach, the research community seems to
be divided between alarmist, more moderate, and mainly positive analyses59 regard-
ing China’s real motives in the Arctic.
Of the state actors, the U.S. is now the most critical with Secretary of State
Pompeo’s May 2019 Rovaniemi speech. He noted, aiming at China in particular,
that all of the parties in the “Arctic marketplace” have to play by the same rules.
“Those who violate those rules should lose their rights to participate in that mar-
ketplace”. He claimed that Chinese investments may undermine domestic rule- and
law-based societies and high level of infrastructure quality in the Arctic.60 The EU
bodies are again more cautious, pointing out that “China will be measured against
its actions rather than its rhetoric”.61 The Commission outlined its balancing line in
the following way: “China is, simultaneously, in different policy areas, a cooperation
partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives, a negotiating partner with
whom the EU needs to nd a balance of interests, an economic competitor in the
pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative mod-
els of governance”.62
Africa
Africa’s abundant resources, weak state structures and strategic position are the
dening features that situate the continent in relation to the international system.63
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
42
External powers have sought out African resources in a context where local states
have only limited capacity to effectively regulate their role. Recognition by African
elites of the continent’s strategic position in relation to either specic resources or
geographical location has produced an approach which cannily employs external
powers as a resource in their own domestic power struggles.64
As a result, the African continent historically served as a site of contestation
between external powers, sometimes deliberately fostered by local elites. Although
the majority of states are democracies today, they lack the requisite nancial and
human capital to perform rudimentary functions of governance. Therefore – whether
democratic or authoritarian – African governments have presided over some of the
most egregious violations of labour, human and environmental rights and, paradox-
ically and over time, some of the most progressive formal and informal regulatory
regimes. In this unstable context, corruption has thrived and China’s celebration
of its non-conditional aid and lack of transparency in its economic dealings with
African governments together with China’s status as alternative to Western powers
effectively supports the spread of these practices.
Efforts to promote democratic norms in Africa, such as elections, transparency
and effective resource governance through the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (EITI) and the Kimberley Process have been moderately successful. On
the other hand, Chinese support for Western designated ‘pariah regimes’ in Africa
has proved to be an important diplomatic prop. Evidence suggests that African
voting patterns on issues in the Human Rights Council and in the UN General
Assembly cohere more closely with Beijing’s positions in line with growing eco-
nomic dependency.65 African trade unions, NGOs and civil society actors have
been at the forefront of demanding accountability from Chinese rms and their
own governments. The emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives by
Western and– at least nominally – by Chinese rms operating in the resource sec-
tor is an explicit acknowledgement that African regulatory regimes are not func-
tioning well.
China has adopted a positive attitude towards African regional organisations,
installing its appointed representatives in the most important ones, while in the
global arena emphasising African nations’ self-reliance in resolving their problems.
China has generally aimed for aligning its policies with those of the African Union
(AU) and other relevant regional organizations, rather than pushing demands onto
them, thus utilising “convergences between its own views and those of key African
regional bodies”.66
Numerous declarative regimes on issues as varied as continental maritime gov-
ernance and industrial policy have been launched by the AU, with limited to no
effective adherence. In terms of external power relations, the continuous depen-
dency of Francophone states on the CFA franc has allowed Paris to exercise consid-
erable inuence over their economies.67 In a similar way (and reminiscent of USD
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
43
ascendancy), China’s stated goal of the internationalisation of the renminbi, accel-
erated after it was acknowledged by the IMF as a basket of currencies with special
drawing rights, prompted several African countries to create renminbi currency con-
version centres.68 The repayment of Chinese loans through recourse to the renminbi
is one of the proposed responses to the new African debt crisis.
The challenge of national regulatory regimes, for instance in the DR Congo, lies
in the density of legislation and the concurrent capacity or desire of African gov-
ernments to enforce rules instead, in the absence of the regimes themselves. Con-
stitutional democracies like Ghana and Botswana have invested in their institutions
and have tended to exhibit stronger commitments to the rule of law.69 Notably,
both of these countries have at one time or another rejected Chinese involvement
in specic sectors: in the case of Ghana, the parliament initially rejected a proposed
oil for infrastructure deal, while in the case of Botswana, the president cancelled
infrastructure projects outright when the Chinese failed to meet expected stan-
dards and commitments. Even Chad, an authoritarian regime with considerable
Chinese investments in developing a domestic oil renery, has deed the logic of
dependency and issued a 1.2 USD billion ne to the CNPC for violations of its
contract in 2014.
At the same time, there is considerable evidence that despite African govern-
ments’ formal adherence to declaratory regimes of conduct, there are only spo-
radic efforts to enforce them. The logic of elite conduct has claimed to be a
function of “the political instrumentality of disorder”; that is to say that African
leaders actively subverted constitutional restrictions and regulatory commitments,
which served to constrain their arbitrary exercise of power.70 This may explain the
pointed use of regulatory power by, for instance, the Chadian government against
Chinese economic interests.
Apart from the invariably critical attitude of the U.S. towards China’s business
model in Africa, the EU71 notes that while China’s investment activity in Africa
has contributed to the growth of many receiving economies, at the same time
“these investments frequently neglect socioeconomic and nancial sustainability
and may result in high-level indebtedness and transfer of control over strategic
assets and resources”. In so doing, China compromises good social and eco-
nomic governance and, most fundamentally, the rule of law and human rights in
Africa.
Discussion
The situation covered above is characterised by the fact that China is a latecomer
and, indeed, an outsider in the regional regimes of both the Arctic and Africa. In
the Arctic, it has nonetheless made efforts to position itself to inuence future rule-
making, and to compensate for its regional outsider role by putting emphasis on
more general global regimes where it is a full member. In the case of Africa, it has
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
44
tried to utilise the weak international or regional governance environment in general,
to align its interests with the African governance system.
Yet many of China’s operations are conditioned by regional states’ domestic reg-
ulations, such as environmental legislation, working rights, and local autonomy.
While strong domestic regulations in the Arctic considerably limit China’s actions,
in Africa, conversely, weak governance structures give China much greater room for
manoeuvre. The question is in which direction the massive Chinese business and
investment penetration into the Arctic and African countries is heading; will it adapt
to the existing practices in these countries, or will it lead to some kind of evolution-
ary conversion of the social-economic systems with increased Chinese characteris-
tics, especially in Africa?
The degree to which Chinese rms are able to adopt new approaches and improved
practices in their operations in both the Arctic and Africa, demonstrating greater
compliance with local regulatory regimes, remains a challenge.
Identities and roles
In the study of international politics, at least three main approaches can generally
be discerned regarding how and why identities are constructed. The rst approach
sees identity formation as taking place in interactive socialisation processes in the
international system between states,72 whereas the second puts more emphasis on
endogenous historical processes and internal discourses within states.73 The third
claims that identity is chosen based on how well it is accepted by other states and
how well it coincides with the nation’s own perception of its past and history.74 The
latter is the most interesting from our point of view.
Scholars on identity typically argue that identity is a more fundamental character-
istic of a state than interest because the latter is based on the former.75 Identity indi-
cates which larger group the state or nation identies with and from which it wants
to differentiate itself, and how strongly. States – and their representative politicians
and ofcials – follow a particular foreign policy in line with what their identity indi-
cates. It is through these choices that states also communicate with each other about
the way in which they want to be treated.
The step from identity to role is not big. Some role theorists talk about identity
and role in an almost reciprocal way; if a role is genuinely adopted, it becomes an
identity. A point related to our topic is the argument that states may not have just one
role, but may adopt or act according to different roles depending on the situation
and specic conditions. This involves the possibility that roles are unfair reections
of true identity. They may be used to conceal a genuine identity or to benet from
the expectations and practices of that role.76
The above focus leads us to formulate some primary research questions for the
current section. What are China’s identity and roles vis-à-vis the Arctic and Africa
respectively? Does it have regionally adapted identities or roles to these regions? If
so, can they be regarded as genuine identities, perhaps constituting China’s interests
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
45
in the regions, or are they rather roles played in order to justify goals related to mere
power political or material interests? And, crucially, how intersubjective – respected
by other states – are these identities and roles?
The Arctic
In the Arctic, China describes itself with attributes such as “responsible major coun-
try”, “near-Arctic state”, “Arctic stakeholder”, and “polar great power”. While this
practice can be traced back to the early 2010s,77 it is most notably expressed in the
country’s 2018 Arctic White Paper.78
One could argue with good reason that the self-proclaimed identity of a “near-
Arctic state” is more about instrumental interest-based role seeking, rather than a
genuine identity. This role is aimed at decreasing the gap between China and the
Arctic States proper, especially in perceiving the high seas and international seabed
(outside national exclusive economic zones) of the Arctic as a common good, open
to resource extraction. Some Chinese analysts claim that “the dichotomy between
Arctic and non-Arctic states in general violates UNCLOS because it automati-
cally puts non-Arctic states in an inferior position”.79 Others have remarked that
the “near-Arctic state” has the benet of differentiating China from the other non-
Arctic states that are geographically located even further away. The term “near-
Arctic state” has also been used in connection with the effects of Arctic climate
change on Chinese weather and environment.80
China’s “near-Arctic” role is not shared in ofcial Western comments. China is
explicitly seen by the U.S. as a revisionist actor in the area, which seeks to challenge
the status quo through the use of identity politics: “Beijing claims to be a ‘Near-
Arctic State’, yet the shortest distance between China and the Arctic is 900 miles.
There are only Arctic States and Non-Arctic States. No third category exists […].”81
The U.S. reluctance to give China any say in Arctic governance was also conrmed
in the Joint Statement between the U.S. and Finnish Presidents in October 2019:
“Arctic governance, guided by applicable international law, is the responsibility of
Arctic nations, particularly through the Arctic Council.”82
The Arctic States are collectively more diplomatic. In the 2019 AC Foreign Min-
isterial meeting’s Joint Declaration, they emphasised the “leadership” of the Arctic
States, but also “recognized the positive contributions of Observers to the work of
the Arctic Council, its Working Groups and other subsidiary bodies”.83
Africa
The focus on China’s interests in African resources, and to a lesser degree African
markets, belies the broader role that identity plays in framing the relationship, and is
likewise indicative of Beijing’s aspirations for its future trajectory. China and Africa
are regularly declared to share common features, including the historical scourge
of colonialism and underlying development challenges that are its legacy.84 China
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
46
claims to be the “world’s largest developing country”, and Africa has the most devel-
oping countries in the world. This of course is a syllogism which is meant to denote
a collective identity and development imperative, but which manages to highlight the
fundamental asymmetries in the relationship.85
In a way, China placing itself rst among developing countries resembles the
U.S.’s traditional understanding of itself as the “leader of the free world”, or the
Soviet understanding of itself as the “leader of the progressive forces”; that is, China
is effectively mirroring the former super powers’ identity politics in its search for a
new global role.
The modality of economic involvement between China and Africa is founded on
“South-South Cooperation”, a term that encompasses all manner of activities from
in-kind technical exchanges to conventional business deals underwritten by policy
banks at commercial rates. In more recent years, this language has been recast to t
the broad narratives of a “common destiny” between China and the world emerg-
ing out of the BRI. Underpinning this is a widening network of educational and
cultural programmes, including scholarships and training programmes for 60,000
African students, and 54 Confucius Centres based in African universities, as well
as the expansion of Chinese language training at 27 secondary schools in parts of
Africa.86 The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), established in 2000
as a tri-annual diplomatic gathering of leaders, sets targets for its future development
and serves as a site for collective norm articulation and convergence.87 Thus, China,
in its “going global policy” in relation to Africa, has increasingly used soft power ele-
ments in its identity politics, following the practices of other great powers.
China’s identity approach towards Africa has been directly contested by the West,
not only by the U.S. but now also by the EU. According to the latter, “China can
no longer be regarded as a developing country. It is a key global actor and leading
technological power”.88
Discussion
There is not much difference between China’s economic/power-political aspirations
and its Arctic or Africa-related adopted (state) identities. Unlike what constructivism
would claim, at the onset at least, the causality seems to work from the latter towards
regional identity formation, rather than vice versa. China’s rising great-power aspi-
rations lead it to consider not only its global role, but at the regional level it also
actively utilises identity vocabulary to enhance and justify its strategic economic and
power interests. So, it is actually not a question of regional identity at all, but rather
of cleverly designed role-plays, taking into account the variety of regional contexts.
Only when brought into a bigger perspective, can one see the common adaptive logic
of these policies.
When it comes to the Arctic, China’s self-proclaimed “near-Arctic state” iden-
tity seems to be an opportunistic self-constructed role to enhance its economic and
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
47
power-political interests, rather than any genuine identity, a stance which has been
rejected by other actors. In Africa, China has recently softened its “leader of devel-
oping countries” approach based on economics and trade alone. China has become
highly aware of the fact that certain Chinese policies are producing negative percep-
tions among Africans, and has added more non-economic and nuanced soft power
elements to its engagement strategy with Africa,89 as briey presented above. The
same goes for the Arctic, where Chinese soft power is often exercised, for instance,
in terms of so-called science diplomacy, with the goal of becoming a more accepted
actor in Arctic affairs.90
The notion of identity policy however leads us to consider whether China’s care-
fully chosen tactical identities or roles vis-à-vis the Arctic and Africa respectively will,
as time passes, nonetheless lead to more established and genuine regional identities
for the country, and what that would entail, for instance, in terms of its above-
mentioned “core interests”. Would these developing new regional identities affect
the interpretation of the non-negotiable red lines of China’s interests?
Conclusions
We have considered China’s policies towards the Arctic and Africa respectively, from
three overlapping perspectives: geoeconomics and geopolitics; regimes and gover-
nance; identities and roles. Our conclusions are summarised in Table 1.
First, by discussing the so-called core interests of China and their foreign policy
implications, we argue that China’s regional geoeconomic policies are driven by its
urge for further domestic and relative economic growth and through that, more
fundamentally, domestic stability. This motivation implies commonality between
China’s cross-regional policies under the more generic foreign policy goals and geo-
economic interests. These interests in turn sometimes require power-political back-
ing in terms of a private or public form of Chinese security presence. Slowly, Chinese
military policy is also being upgraded in order for the country to become a global
actor capable of defending its national security interests in the regional geopolitical
settings discussed here.
Second, we contend that China utilises its membership in more generic interna-
tional regimes, such as UN-based institutions and international law in general, in
order to maximise its freedom of action. China as a rising great power also tries to
penetrate and participate in developing international regional regimes while at the
same time drawing on bilateral agreements with regional governments. Regional
allies provide a host of important functions for China, from access to resources
and infrastructure opportunities for Chinese rms, to local knowledge and legiti-
macy, which are important in shaping and improving Chinese strategy and policy
responses towards these regions.
Third, considering China’s identities and roles, as a kind of external newcomer
to the regions discussed here, we conclude that it is mostly a question of carefully
Christer Pursiainen, Chris Alden and Rasmus Bertelsen
48
Table 1. Determinants dening China’s growing role and position in the Arctic and Africa
China’s regional
determinants
The Arctic Africa
Geoeconomic interests – Mining minerals
– Transport infrastructure
– ‘Polar silk road’ (Northeast Passage)
– Compensating for the lack of
sovereign Arctic territory with
ability to nance large-scale Arctic
development projects
– Mining minerals
– Transport infrastructure
– BRI
– Financing large-scale development
projects
Geostrategic/geopolitical
interests
– Relevance to China’s national
security not openly outlined
– US speculations about China
deploying submarines to the region
in the future as a deterrent against
nuclear attacks
– No military structure but
possibly dual-use technology and
infrastructure, including its satellite
system
– Relevance acknowledged since 2012
through FOCAC partnership/UN
multilateral PKO
– 1st overseas military base at Djibouti
– Critical infrastructure nancing
(harbours), industrial park
International regimes
and governance
– Focusing on UN regulations to use
the sea, especially UNCLOS and
IMO Polar Code
– Observer in the Arctic Council, but
while opening channels also obliging
to comply with its principles
and seven criteria for observers,
including the recognition of Arctic
states’ sovereignty, sovereign rights
and jurisdiction in the Arctic
– China’s aspiration to transform the
Arctic governance from regional
to more global for the benet of
humankind
– Rhetorical adherence to
international and regional regimes
– FOCAC, a regional diplomatic
forum to reframe norms in line with
Chinese and Africa preferences (no
Western govts allowed in)
– Aid regimes and practices crucial
entry point for China – breaking
OECD ‘donor cartel’ through no
conditionalities approach
– Agrees to observer status at OECD-
DAC
Domestic regimes
(of the region)
– The Arctic States, except Russia,
are recognised rule of law-based
countries, including strong working
rights and environmental regulation,
limiting China’s freedom of action
– Bilateral approaches to workers’
rights or environment vary
depending on African governments’
requirements
– China’s ‘demand driven’/
no conditionalities approach
encourages reduced compliance with
international norms
– Appealing to ‘pariah’ regimes
Sub-global identities
of China
– China’s urge to be a ‘responsible
major country’, ‘polar great power’,
‘near-Arctic state’ and an ‘Arctic
stakeholder’, seeing the high seas
and international seabed of the
Arctic as a common good, open to
resource extraction
– ‘Leading developing country’ that
can serve as a model of development
for Africa
– China and Africa have a ‘common
destiny’, shared history of
colonialism, etc.
– BRI identity only East/Horn of
Africa maritime route meaningful
The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy
49
fabricated sub-global or regional role-play, rather than a question of genuine iden-
tities at this point. While identities are not driving interests in China’s sub-global
policies– quite the converse in fact – these current tactical identities or roles might
still become more closely connected to China’s real great-power identity, and through
that its national core interests, as time goes on.
Fourth, our overall conclusion is that China’s sub-global strategies clearly reect
and make sense only in the context of the general Chinese grand strategy of a coun-
try that is slowly but surely aiming at taking on the role of the leading global super-
power. Yet the Chinese foreign policy system is characterised by rather exible and
adaptive strategies, managing to tailor its so-called core interests and foreign policy
principles to sub-global conditions. As its core interests lie in preserving the current
political system and power relations within China, it is not, unlike the Soviet Union,
interested in exporting its own economic and political system more widely, although
Xi Jinping has become less shy about promoting the Chinese model.
Finally, some Chinese system characteristics will inevitably affect the regions and
countries where it enhances its economic and military position, with its formal and
informal values, norms, rules and practices. The experience shows that China can
utilise its power in relation to weaker countries and regions. The lessons for such
hugely different regions as the Arctic and Africa in this context are, however, the
same. Strong regional and domestic institutions, based on rule of law and sustainable
development goals function as barriers against the penetration of negative effects of
the Chinese presence. A threat to the functioning of these barriers is if China man-
ages to create bilateral relations based on one-sided dependence, using its economic
power and utilising other parties’ vulnerable situations, such as economic crises. At
the same time, it is possible that China’s increasing presence, especially in strong
democracies and market economies, may gradually and in the long term also modify
Chinese practices in the spirit of a convergence of systems through interaction and
globalisation.
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