Ruminations

The Chinese Arctic Circle

"For anyone interested in geopolitics, this is the region to follow in years to come. [Huang] might be just another smiling businessman [but] we are talking about perceptions here."
"And the perception is that China wants a foothold in the Arctic."
"When you are a big country, you can claim to be whatever you want, and people believe you."
Willy Ostreng, president, Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research

"No need to doubt that billionaire Huang Nubo is a straw man for the Chinese Communist Party and the country's authorities."
Nordlys, northern Norway newspaper

"We will throw in the polar bears for free."
Ole Einar Gjerde, Norwegian realtor

Eerie: A green aurora appears over Svalbard in Norway, an area close to the north pole which is shrouded in darkness for much of the year

For sale by private owner: Arctic tract of land roughly twice larger than Manhattan. Major attraction, icy beauty, peace and quiet; this is no Manhattan. The property exists, wintry-cold in perpetuity, located across an icy fiord's distance from Longyearbyen, capital of the country's most northern territory. The property is for sale. Those with deep enough pockets and even deeper covert interests beyond what is being claimed have expressed their desire to own it. Will Norway permit that to happen?

The property business deal Mr. Giaever is eager to conclude as is the buyer who suffered a rebuff the year before when he attempted to purchase a tract of frozen wilderness in Iceland, has reason to believe he will have better luck with Norway. A preliminary deal was reached, to buy a waterfront plot for roughly $4-million near the northern city of Tromso. It is, however, the much larger tract of land on Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago that Norway's state broadcaster claims to be the real target.

Chinese tycoon, Huang Nubo's company, Beijing Zhonkun Investment Group has denied Norwegian media reports that it is aiming to buy high Arctic land. Its only, and above-board focus, it claims, is on plans to build a luxury resort complex in Lyngen on the Norwegian mainland near Tromso. Its ownership would place Mr. Huang's company inside the Arctic Circle, and as such has drawn well-founded suspicion. The seller, Ola Giaever, eager to sell his property near Tromso states: "This is a business deal. Nothing less (sic: nothing more?) is going on."

China, though not even remotely a country bordering the Arctic -- such as Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway and Iceland -- has a keen interest in the area. That interest is propelled by the prospect of eventual exploitation of the mineral and fossil fuel resources held to be embedded in the area. To that end, though preposterous, China even declared itself a "near Arctic state" despite the tip of its northernmost region being thousands of miles from the Arctic Circle.

"Xuelong" or "Snow Dragon has concluded a three months long Arctic expedition (Photo: antarctica.gov.au)

China, according to Mr. Ostreng, has "openly declared its Arctic ambitions", investing in an icebreaker -- the Snow Dragon -- sending scientists to Scalbard along with teams of international researchers, lobbying successfully to be accepted as an observer at the Arctic Council, itself a collection of countries with legitimate connections to the Arctic: Norway, Canada, Iceland, Russia and the United States.

Husky's delight: A rare pink sky over Svalbard, Norway. The spectacular sight only occurs once in every five years

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the region of the Arctic contains roughly 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its natural gas, untouched reserves to this date, resulting from the difficulty and high infrastructure cost of development. Russia, a legitimate stakeholder in the area, has announced a $400-billion investment to extract Arctic resources over the next two decades; assuming it can find the wherewithal for that planned investment.

Russia and China have historically been at odds with one another, but relations have warmed somewhat of late. Which hasn't meant that Russia is unconcerned over China's interest in the Arctic. "The struggle for resources is getting tougher", observed Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, Russia's state oil company, who contends the Arctic holds over 20 percent of the world's oil reserves.

A wisp of green light twists over a pink sky in this incredible picture of northern lights over Svalbard in Norway. German photographer Kerstin Langenberger, 29, captured the incredible moment when she was travelling 800 miles from the North Pole

The Norwegian land now in dispute on Svalbard, up for sale is owned by descendants of a Norwegian shipper who bought it in 1937. It is the sole privately held territory left in Norway, and the first to be available for development since 1952. The state of Norway owns all else, and the area holds a Norwegian state coal company, Store Norske, and a Russian state-owned coal company, the Arctic Coal Trust.

The five countries whose territory does verge on and include territory within the Arctic Circle speculate China's efforts to attain a permanent foothold in the region of growing geopolitical and economic importance will deleteriously impact on their own interests. All the more so as expectations that global warming will continue to melt the Arctic seas, making year-round shipping from Asia less expensive, and enhancing prospects for natural resources exploitation.