China’s Arctic AmbitionsThe Arctic is a gold mine for natural resources. Expect the Chinese to take advantage.
JOHN MAC GHLIONN
APRIL 20, 2022
The sixth “Arctic: Territory of Dialogue,” a conference of the International Arctic Forum and a platform for discussing issues related to the North Pole, was supposed to take place this month in St. Petersburg, Russia. Unless you happen to live under a rock, you’re no doubt aware that Russia is busy invading a sovereign nation. This year’s dialogue has been postponed. Nevertheless, when it comes to the Arctic region, a different dialogue is taking place between Russia and China. The Chinese Communist Party has shown great interest in this largely inhospitable region. The question is: Why?
As I’ve discussed before, the CCP wants to control the world’s rare earth elements (REEs). Although the Arctic is a formidable place, in this respect it is also an enticing one. It has enormous deposits of highly valuable mineral resources, including phosphate, bauxite, diamonds, iron ore, and gold. It also has an abundance of silver, copper, and zinc. The CCP wants to loot the Arctic.
Berit Skorstad is a Norwegian academic who has carried out research on the effects of mining in Arctic communities. Large “parts of the Arctic region are ocean,” she said, “with a large, clean and relatively undisturbed marine ecosystem, much of it under permanent ice.” But, Skorstad added, “Arctic is warming three times faster than the earth as a whole. As a consequence, a significant percentage of the Arctic Ocean, including part of the open sea, is now ice-free for parts of the year. Current estimates indicate that the entire Arctic Ocean will probably be ice-free for part of the year in a few decades.”
One imagines that China knows this only too well. And the Arctic has plenty of fish. In recent years, having exhausted reserves closer to home, Chinese fishing fleets have moved into foreign waters. It seems likely that they will soon enter the Arctic. Last year, Skorstad said, “a new fisheries agreement in the central Arctic sea entered into force,” preventing “unregulated commercial fishing in a wide area of the Arctic Ocean,” which may cause “significant damage to the marine environment.” This is what China does—it overfishes, and destroys marine environments in the process. With roughly 17,000 vessels, China possesses the largest deep-water-fishing fleet in the world.
Skorstad also discussed the Arctic’s rich mineral resources, including “iron ore, copper, nickel and zinc in addition to carbon (fossil) based resources like coal, oil and gas.” China, it is important to note, consumes more than half the world’s coal. The Arctic, Skorstad said, is a veritable gold mine for “many industrialized countries trying to find secure supplies of many natural resources.” “All these resources,” she added, “are interesting not only for China but also the industrialized world in general.”
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Arctic may be home to the vast “majority of the world’s remaining untapped oil and gas reserves.” Researchers predict that the majority of these reserves are located offshore. “As Arctic ice declines, and as oil companies look for new resources,” they warn in a National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP) report, these reserves will become incredibly valuable.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/chinas-arctic-ambitions/
