Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will have a terse message for China at an upcoming meeting of the Arctic Council: Stand down.
“There are Arctic states and there are non-Arctic states,” a senior State Department official said this week. “The eight Arctic states conduct governance of the Arctic region, and we reject attempts by non-Arctic states to claim a role in this process.”
That statement, delivered during a press preview of Pompeo’s trip to the May 7 Arctic Council ministerial in Finland, suggests that a normally low-profile summit will feature the latest diplomatic clash between the United States and China. As melting ice raises the prospect of new sea routes and energy exploration, world powers are jockeying for influence in the region. China is an observer to the council but not one of the eight members. Those are the United States, Canada, Denmark (including Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden.
“We recognize that what happens in the Arctic affects every country in the world, and that is why, in part, the council has the provision to have observers,” a second senior State Department official said. “But we make the distinction that it is up to those eight countries, through the council, to address governance issues. Observers have interests, but we note, for example, China sometimes refers to itself as a near-Arctic state. There’s no such definition in the council’s lexicon.”
That’s a rebuff of a key plank in China’s strategy for the region. The Communist regime called itself a “near-Arctic state” in a white paper last year, declaring its intention to “participate in the governance of the Arctic.” The strategy document noted that melting ice raises environmental concerns and economic opportunities that affect “humanity as a whole” and concluded, “The governance of the Arctic requires the participation and contribution of all stakeholders.”
Pompeo has shown increasing concern about China’s emergence in the Arctic, traveling to Iceland in February at the conclusion of a European trip focused on warning allies that Chinese telecommunications giants pose an espionage risk. He will sound the alarm again next week in meetings with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Greenland, another country where China has been trying to establish “bridgeheads,” as U.S. officials put it.
“The administration is reinvigorating our trilateral relationship with Greenland and Denmark after a period of neglect, and we’ve committed to peace and sustainable economic developments for the long term,” the first State Department official said. “And we’re concerned about activities of other nations, including China, that do not share these same commitments.”
Pompeo will be taking that trip just days after the Department of Defense outlined China’s potential to pose a military threat in the region.
“The government of Denmark has publicly expressed concern about China’s interest in Greenland, which has included proposals to establish a research station in Greenland, establish a satellite ground station, renovate airports, and expand mining,” Pentagon officials noted in the 2019 report on China’s military power, released Thursday. “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.”
Communist officials portray such efforts as a benign expansion of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to invest in infrastructure projects around the world. China’s Arctic strategy calls for a “Polar Silk Road” through the region, but U.S. officials regard it as a predatory plan to gain influence and even sovereignty over strategically significant areas.
“There has been no military conflict in the Arctic, which remains peaceful in large part due to strong, stable governance,” the first State Department official said. “All of the Arctic Council states and observers recognize the Arctic states’ sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction in the Arctic.”
