In January, a pair of pandas flew to Finland on a diplomatic mission. Hua Bao and Jin Bao Bao had been dispatched from their native Chengdu as a gesture of goodwill from China’s president Xi Jinping. Their arrival, part of China’s ‘panda diplomacy’, is one of several signs that the country is on a High North charm offensive.
Days after the pandas had settled into their new home, China released its first ever White Paper on the Arctic. It is a document that defies geography, referring to China as a “Near-Arctic State,” despite its borders lying over a thousand miles south of the Arctic Circle. Much of the language is cautious, yet a few phrases underscore China’s long-term ambitions for this part of the world and its proposed construction of a “Polar Silk Road.” Why is China so keen on the Arctic? After all, most coverage of the region paints it as a place of crumbling glaciers, struggling indigenous communities, and starving polar bears.
But China prefers to see the Arctic region as another buckle in its Belt and Road Initiative — a proposed Beijing-led link-up of Europe and Asia via roads, airports, seaports, railways, pipelines, data centres and broadband cables.
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