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A Primary Node of the Global Economy: China and the Arctic
Abstract
This chapter discusses the role of the Arctic in China’s global vision, which seeks to reposition the country as a primary node of global flows of energy, goods, technology, data, and knowledge. The chapter begins by introducing the flow-centric lens through which China’s global economic outreach and its region-based execution are interpreted. In particular, it proposes an alternative approach of China’s functional economic regions, a novel conceptual framework challenging the Euro-centric reading of space that dominates most analyses of China’s global engagement. The chapter continues by providing an overview of the political goals of China’s primary node vision, setting the scene for the following empirical section that investigates the make-up of the China– Arctic functional economic region. This is done by tracing flows of (1) natural resources, (2) seaborne goods, and (3) technology, knowledge, and data, and discussing their role in China’s economic development and goals of the primary node vision. As China’s Arctic engagement is as much about future potential as about actual developments, the empirical analysis also takes into account possible and probable developments that carry the potential to shape China–Arctic flows. Finally, the conclusion elaborates on the future prospects and implications of the emerging China– Arctic functional economic region.
... China is in the consistent phase of its development, and continuity exists in the overall increment of its exports. China has developed its expertise in the different sectors of their industry, the efficient production and better quality of the products, including advanced machinery attracting different countries to create long-term trade relationships with China [132]. The enhancement in the Sino-Russian relationship can negatively impact the different industries in Europe. ...
This article empirically assessed new opportunities and provides a conceptual justification for promising areas of trade and financial and economic relations between China and Russia amidst ongoing global turbulence, the post-COVID situation, and sanctions pressure. The study utilized the trade gravity model, taking into account the latest trends in the development of the research subject and object, as well as current challenges and trends in the global economy. The study revealed similarities between the political systems, reforms, and policies of China and Russia, with centralized power structures overlapping and supporting each other at international forums such as the UNSC. The findings suggest that both countries plan to increase trade volume in the next two years, with China focusing more on trade and economic development, while Russia works to promote security and political stability. This study provides valuable insights into the economic relationship between Russia and China, its impact on the US and Europe, and highlights the need for effective policy interventions to address the challenges posed by this relationship. It offers significant theoretical and practical contributions, including the potential to unlock the potential of national economies, increase their competitiveness and help states enter a phase of advanced and sustainable development. This article provides several policy recommendations to ensure the long-term sustainability of the economic relationship between Russia and China and foster mutual understanding and trust between their peoples. These include promoting trade diversification, enhancing financial cooperation, addressing trade barriers, strengthening political and security coordination, mitigating negative impacts on other countries, promoting sustainable development, and fostering people-to-people exchanges.
... Yet the region itself is multinodal: it is a fabric of actorto-actor networks whose nodes can be located either within or outside the geographic Arctic region (cf. Womack, 2014;Kauppila, 2022). ...
This year’s theme, “The Russian Arctic: Economics, Politics & Peoples” was chosen, at the turn of 2021-2022 and prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, due to the high relevance of the Russian Arctic in every aspect of Arctic politics. The region comprises over half of the Arctic’s land surface area, mostly covered by permafrost, and almost half of the coastline and the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Arctic Ocean. Its population consists of almost 70% of the total number of Arctic inhabitants. The volume of its economy with multiple fields of exploitation is 73% of that of the Arctic. Despite being largely covered by permafrost, the Russian part of the Arctic contains large cities and numerous towns and villages, as well as road networks and even railways. These populated centers, many of them ‘mono-towns’, are surrounded by advanced infrastructure – both old and new – and consist of mines, smelters and other factories, harbors, airports and other transportation means, research stations, as well as navel and other military bases. Since the time of tzardom, Russian scientists and scholars have explored the Arctic and conducted field work studying geography, Arctic ecosystems, climate, cryospheric sciences, glaciers, the Arctic Ocean, and sea-ice. The Russian Arctic is also home to diverse groups of Indigenous peoples with their unique languages, cultures and livelihoods. Research done by and with Russian scientists, scholars and academic institutions is an invaluable part of international Arctic research.
The Russian Arctic is therefore an incredibly important part of the entire Arctic region to understand, not only because the Russian Federation is the biggest and largest of the eight Arctic states. And yet, the region is often either not known, and/or misunderstood to external audiences and stakeholders, with superficial characterizations proliferating due to a lack of up-to-date information. There is thus a need for sophisticated English-language scholarship on the Russian Arctic, especially from Russian authors themselves. That is the intent of the Arctic Yearbook 2022.
Satellite ground stations in the Arctic and High North are of strategic importance to NATO, given their ability to collect intelligence from space assets in polar Earth orbit. Commercial space infrastructure such as ground systems are increasingly dual-use, employed for both civilian and defense purposes. Their dual-use could cause them to become military targets. As such, commercial operators must strategically consider ground station placement to optimize for utility, while accounting for their security risk. This research presents a framework to assess the commercial satellite ground station security landscape by outlining security and performance tradeoffs given geographic location, including proximity to potential adversaries, and designates eight separate risk regions. Particularly, Sweden's and Finland's space infrastructure is of focus given their recent application to join NATO in the wake of Russian aggression. The paper concludes that, to secure ground stations and the assets and services that they enable, a comprehensive risk evaluation including positioning of ground stations is critical.
Although China has emerged as an increasingly influential global actor over recent decades, it is unclear whether a more fundamental transformation is shaking processes of regionalisation in this context. Our scenario-based case study considers the spatial reconfiguration of the rapidly globalising Arctic with varying degrees of Chinese engagement. More specifically, we examine alternative and transformational configurations of the Arctic in 2049, and ponder upon the plausibility of the hypothesised changes in light of three schools of thought on International Relations – realism, liberal institutionalism and relationalism. Hence, we explore how the rise of China could potentially alter the regional dynamics and whether, consequently, regions should be rethought both empirically and theoretically. We conclude that pluralistic discussion on the multiple regional outcomes is a necessary precondition for achieving a balanced and democratic future in the Arctic and beyond.
Av historiska, ekonomiska och säkerhetspolitiska orsaker är Finland ett ”minst sannolikt fall” (least likely case) vad gäller oro över kinesiska investeringar. Finland har inom EU haft det högsta relativa handelsberoendet av Kina. Sedan år 2016 är Finland även ett av de EU-länder som fått mest investeringar från Kina absolut sett. Finland, som inte är NATO-medlem, har oproblematiska relationer till Kina och en öppen ekonomi, som ännu för några år sedan välkomnade kinesiska investeringar. Landet har också en ovanligt lång obruten tradition av inhemsk lagstiftning om utländska investeringar som sedan 1992 kan betecknas som liberal. Under de senaste två åren har det emellertid bland policyeliten och i den allmänna diskussionen skett en drastisk förändring i synen på kinesiska investeringar som närmast kan betecknas som en gestalt shift. En påföljd av detta är att behovet av en bättre helhetsbild om kinesiska investeringar har identifierats. Informationsutbyte och koordinering mellan olika myndigheter har förbättrats på många sätt. Samtidigt har man även fördjupat nordiskt myndighetssamarbete och informationsutbyte om relevant lagstiftning och praxis inom området. Även om samarbete kring utländska investeringar inte ingick i Stoltenberg-rekommendationerna år 2009, så kan man se det som ett naturligt led i intensifierat nordiskt säkerhetssamarbete.
Since the mid-1980s, double-digit gross domestic product (GDP) growth has driven the Chinese economy from an agrarian peasant base to the manufacturing center of the world, its economy now second in size only to the United States. This industrial expansion has, naturally, been accompanied by an explosion in resource consumption. China accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s population, yet consumes half of its cement, one-third of its steel, over a quarter of its aluminum, two-thirds of its iron ore, and more than 45 percent of its coal.1 In only the past 13 years, China has also swallowed up over four-fifths of the increase in the world’s copper supply.2 For most of the country’s fantastic growth, its own vast resources proved sufficient to support its industrial expansion. In the past decade, however, China has recognized the need to augment these supplies with foreign sources, and Chinese companies, normally state-owned enterprises (SOEs), have tapped into the vast reserves of the state and state-owned banks (SOBs) to secure access to mineral deposits abroad.
By examining regionalism from historical, spatial, comparative and global perspectives, Rethinking Regionalism transcends the deep intellectual and disciplinary rivalries that have limited our knowledge about the subject. This broad-ranging approach enables new and challenging answers to emerge as to why and how regionalism evolves and consolidates, how it can be compared, and what its ongoing significance is for a host of issues within global politics, from security and trade to development and the environment. Retaining a balanced and authoritative style throughout, this text will be welcomed for its uniquely comprehensive examination of regionalism in the contemporary global age.
Though the Arctic Council accepted China, Japan, and South Korea as observers in May 2013, the multilateral organization’s permanent member states continue to treat them as non-Arctic outsiders due to their lack of territory north of the Arctic Circle. Applying geographic perspectives that consider the importance of territory and proximity on the one hand and relations and networks on the other, the author argues for a reconceptualization of the Arctic region extending beyond the Arctic Circle. After presenting an overview of the Arctic’s long-standing economic integration with disparate parts of the globe, the author examines the bilateral economic cooperation occurring between countries in Northeast Asia and the eight countries with territory north of the Arctic Circle. Special attention is paid to the ports, or gateways and pivots, linking resources in the North Pacific and wider Arctic region to destinations in Northeast Asia. Importantly, the shipping lanes of the Northern Sea Route and the North Pacific Great Circle Route are facilitating these commercial ties, especially as northern countries seek to export their liquefied natural gas to expanding markets in Northeast Asia. Finally, as political cooperation has not grown to match the intensifying economic cooperation between Northeast Asian and Arctic countries, the author considers present and future directions of regional governance within the Asian-Arctic region. Possibilities examined include more focused regional and mini-lateral structures along with mechanisms based less on territory and more on networks and relations, especially those concentrated in the North Pacific – Northeast Asia’s maritime entryway to the Arctic.
Agnew J. A. Arguing with regions, Regional Studies. An analytical survey of how regions have entered into the arguments of the social sciences serves to highlight the uses and limitations of different understandings of regions and their various theoretical biases. It also provides a way of introducing the articles in the rest of this special issue. It considers how regions have come to be used as a classificatory device across the social sciences, discusses the various meanings given to regions in empirical research, and examines the main philosophical and theoretical controversies that have been sparked by their use. Matching regions to purpose and avoiding a singular conception of region that claims to fit all arguments are the main conclusions.
China’s rise to a global economic superpower is one of the most significant megatrends of current times. As a result of the country’s latest global strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (一带一路), China’s geo-economic outreach is particularly visible in maritime transport. This chapter discusses the making of the Polar Silk Road (冰上丝绸之路)—a shipping corridor consisting of three major sea lanes running through Arctic waters—as an empirical case study to explore China’s involvement in global shipping. In particular, the chapter identifies four categories of corridor-making practices, ways through which Chinese maritime actors are advancing the emerging of a geo-economic space that connects China with Arctic localities. Ranging from physical facilitation to enabling a smooth flow of traffic, these sets of practices are shaped by both the external politico-economic environment and the domestic interplay between the Chinese central government, local governments, and Chinese companies and scholars.
Foreword Timothy M. Shaw 1. Introduction: China - Yes, But... 2. Studying China in an Era of Globalization 3. The Transition from Socialism: An Embedded Socialist Compromise? 4. Re-Engagement with the Global Economy 5. Beyond Bilateralism: What the Statistics Don't Tell Us 6. Interpreting Chinese "Power" in the Global Political Economy 7. The Domestic Context: Stretching the Social Fabric? 8. Conclusions Afterword
Regional transformation has emerged as a major topic of research during the past few decades, much of it seeking to understand how a region changes into a zone of conflict or cooperation and how and why some regions remain in perpetual conflict. Although the leading theoretical paradigms of international relations have something to say about regional order, a comprehensive treatment of this subject is missing from the literature. This book suggests that cross-paradigmatic engagement on regional orders can be valuable if it can generate theoretically innovative, testable propositions and policy-relevant ideas. The book brings together scholars from the dominant IR perspectives aiming to explain the regional order issue through multidimensional and multi-causal pathways and seeking meeting points between them. Using insights from IR theory, the contributors offer policy-relevant ideas which may benefit conflict-ridden regions of the world.
This book explores modern international society by drawing on the closely related disciplines diplomatic and military history, international legal studies, and international political theory. It analyses the most significant international issues to date, including peace and security, war and intervention, human rights, failed states, territories and boundaries, and democracy. It then considers the future of international society in the 21st century, and argues that the pluralist relationship of sovereign states is one that upholds freedom and respects human diversity.
This volume examines the prominent role of China in global politics and the relevance of the 'new regionalism' paradigm to China's international outreach. It provides a comprehensive and critical assessment of China's impact on the global politics of regionalization, offers a novel application of analytical models, investigates the aspects of the Chinese practice of regionalization that set it apart, and demonstrates China's transformative potential in international life. Addressing the need to 're-Orient' the research and policy agenda of international relations, this comprehensive study demonstrates both the lack of language to engage with existing norms and standards and the difficulty of applying them to an evaluation of the global politics of China's 'non-Western' international agency.
The rise of China has brought about new considerations and a debate in East Asian security studies. Several of the countries
neighbouring China have been probed for their degree of ‘Finlandization’, as manifest in excessive attentiveness to the interests
of a neighbouring great power, due to the power asymmetry between the ‘Finlandized’ and the ‘Finlandizer’. This article will
scrutinize Finlandization and determine to what extent the power relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union can be
compared with the emerging power relationship that China’s East Asian neighbours will have to tackle. Furthermore, this article
will seek from the Finnish experience lessons for East Asia on how to adapt to power realities without making the mistakes
that Finland and the Soviet Union made in their relationship. China’s East Asian neighbours could learn how to avoid compromising
their autonomy from Finland’s mistakes. They could also learn from Finnish realism how to tackle the security dilemma that
the rise of Chinese power involves, and how to seek security in a way that would not make the rising great power feel any
less secure.
Over the next twenty years China is likely to become the world's largest national economy, though not home to the richest one-fifth of the world's population. Chinese demographic power will be qualitatively different from American technological power despite bottom-line similarities in GNP, and China will face challenges of political and economic sustainability. Assuming that globalization, constrained state sovereignty and demographic revolution continue as basic world trends, the world order is likely to be one in which concerns about conflicts of interests drive interactions, but no state or group of states is capable of benefitting from unilaterally enforcing its will against the rest. Thus, there is no set of "poles" whose competition or cooperation determines the world order, despite the differences of exposure created by disparities in capacity. Although the United States and China will be the primary state actors and their relationship will contain elements of rivalry as well as cooperation, the prerequisites of Cold War bipolarity no longer exist. Rather, the order would be best described as "multinodal," a matrix of interacting, unequal units that pursue their own interests within a stable array of national units and an increasing routinization of international regimes and interpenetrating transnational connections.
The shrinking of Arctic ice triggers off a new round of competition and dispute in this region, among traditional Arctic states and non-Arctic actors. Like its East Asia neighbours, China sees the melting Arctic Ocean a unique opportunity for itself and international trade generally. The changing physical landscape of the Arctic region will certainly have a major impact on China’s economic future which is very dependent on international shipping. This paper assesses the impact of the ice-free Arctic on the development of marine transport industry in China. The author discusses the potential new routes with the Arctic’s melting and the opportunities that it brings to China’s maritime transportation industry. Challenges that China faces in future shipping through the Arctic will be also addressed from political, legal, economic and environmental dimensions, followed by a preliminary exploration of ways to solution of these challenges.
Xuelong to sail through future central route
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Alaska natural gas project is promising and a win-win
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Chinese mining companies feel misled by Canada, report says
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Record traffic on Northern Sea route as COSCO completes five transits
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A proposed railway in the Arctic has investors excited and - And indigenous groups terrified
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Citronen lead-zinc project
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Looking North: Sharpening America’s Arctic focus
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Protect the party: China’s growing influence in the developing world
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Arctic LNG 2 and siemens sign equipment supply contract
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The Chinese economy. Adaptation and growth
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China Nordic Arctic research center
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Xue Long 2 enters into service
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Chinese shipping firm COSCO Plans to launch services to Europe through Arctic Northeast passage, saving days in travel time
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Sharp power. Rising authoritarian influence. National Endowment for Democracy
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Yamal LNG reaches thirty million tons milestone
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Chinese President Xi Jinping urges push towards hi-tech independence
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LNG tanker “Christophe de Margerie” completes unique voyage along the Northern Sea Route
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