Is the world due for a new geopolitical crisis- one that may, at some point, harden into political and economic conflict? In the far north, where ice that has been accumulating for 2.58 million years is melting away, the first signs of a new polar confrontation seem to be appearing.
A few days ago the well-known Russian company Rosatom announced that it was opening a regular route from China to Europe through the Arctic. That came only hours after China launched its sixteenth scientific expedition to the region- an expedition unprecedented in scale, and for that reason followed closely in America, out of concern that it may be a prelude to Chinese economic, and then military, expansion in a region that sits at the crossroads of global geopolitical ambition.
One might ask: Is the Arctic one of the most important routes for China on its way to global power? Napoleon Bonaparte once wrote that the policy of states lies in their geography. Later, the masters of geopolitics- foremost among them the great British geographer Halford Mackinder- held that seas, rivers, and the icy poles alike are not mere natural features but instruments for the making of history.
Today the world stands before the Arctic as though it were a field for traditional geographic expansion, by which states move from local or regional tracks into the orbit of global power.
The Arctic ice has lately been turning to water through the greenhouse effect or the warming of the planet- and by 2030 the entire region may become seasonally ice-free.
Everyone is scrambling over that quiet patch of the earth. Consider the United States, which in its latest national security strategy underlined its interests in the Western Hemisphere; the Trump administration views the Arctic as a trove of energy and minerals, and as a strategic platform for confronting Russian ambitions. From another direction, and despite the burdens of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has not hesitated to increase its investment in its Northern Fleet and its maritime infrastructure. Europe, for its part, has had its eyes reopened to the Arctic by the talk surrounding Greenland.
China, then, was hardly going to hold back from the division of spoils now under way there, where the Arctic subsurface- across an immense expanse of 27 million square kilometers, some seven million more than the combined area of Canada and the United States- is rich with treasure. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Arctic holds 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil.
But one thing whets China's appetite in particular for a leap into the region: It holds vast quantities of minerals- nickel, copper, precious stones, graphite, and, above all, the rare earth elements. These last are a decisive flashpoint for global conflict, since they go into the manufacture of chips- the heart of artificial intelligence, the mistress of the new world. China to this hour holds a monopoly over its own stock of these minerals and bars their export to the United States.
It is enough to note that Greenland holds beneath its surface an estimated 1.5 million tons of them, which explains the American desire to lay hands on it. China's unusual interest in the Arctic can also be read through the waterways that must open as the ice melts- as Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds show in their book published last October, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic.
The new passages will serve as living arteries for Chinese supply chains, and as an impetus to consolidate the gains of the Belt and Road. The voyage from the Chinese industrial port of Dalian to Rotterdam takes 48 to 57 days by the ordinary routes, but by the northern sea that skirts the Russian polar coast it is shorter by about a third. China's geography, however, denies it the standing of a coastal Arctic state like the United States, Canada, Norway, Iceland, and Russia. Hence, the insistence of Chinese official statements that the Arctic is common property, that every state has a role to play, and that governing the region requires the participation of all concerned- a formulation the West does not appear to accept, even if Russia has swallowed it grudgingly.
And what are the polar powers, contending over the ice, forgetting? The fear that the melting snow may open a path to ecological ruin- and awaken the zombies of organisms that have lain beneath the ice for millions of years.
