- Xuelong 2, China’s first domestically made icebreaker, left Shanghai on July 15 for its first trip to the Arctic.
- It is not the first time that a Chinese icebreaker has gone to the Arctic, but the ship and voyage underscore Chinese ambitions for the region at a time when many countries are pursuing their interests there.
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China’s first domestically-made icebreaker set off this month for its first trip to the Arctic, a few days after President Donald Trump said the United States was looking for up to 10 new icebreakers of its own, underscoring the growing interest that the great powers have in being able to access the region.
Xuelong 2, or Snow Dragon 2, left Shanghai on July 15 for a scientific expedition to the Arctic and is expected to return in late September. According to state media, scientists aboard the ship plan to investigate Arctic biodiversity and ecosystems to improve China’s understanding of climate change in the Arctic.
The Xuelong, which China bought in the 1990s, has already traveled to the Arctic. While the Xuelong 2 trip is not the first for Beijing, it adds credibility to China’s polar ambitions, according to Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, a professor at Deakin University in Australia.
Chinese Xue Long icebreaker in a drift ice camp in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, July 2010.
Wikimedia Commons
“It is a ‘victory’ for Beijing because the international community is witnessing China’s great ability to design, build and operate an icebreaker on a national level,” said Buchanan, also a non-resident member of the West Point Modern War Institute.
Several countries are trying to improve their ability to operate in the Arctic, where receding ice and warming temperatures promise access to natural resources and shipping routes. Most of them border the Arctic Ocean and claim a part of its waters. Many view China’s designs skeptically, especially its self-designation as a “near-Arctic state.”
While only “a small sliver” of the Arctic are international waters, “China is driving this narrative that the Arctic is a global common good, trying to expand the” acceptance “that China really has regarding the region,” Buchanan said. in an email.
“The West has not (until now) done a great job of rejecting this commons approach. New ice-breaking capabilities are being shown with [Xuelong 2] they force us to realize that Beijing is going nowhere in the Arctic narrative, “added Buchanan.
While the stated goals for the Xuelong 2 expedition relate to scientific research, the intent is twofold, Buchanan said: it is “an internal public relations stunt” to bolster China’s global stature and is meant to convey to states the Arctic that China is a relevant actor in the region, “now with the ability to credibly support [its] interest.”
A ‘precarious’ arctic relationship
Chinese President Xi Jinping with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS Summit in southeast China’s Fujian Province on September 4, 2017.
REUTERS / Wu Hong / Pool
China has worked closely with Russia on Arctic infrastructure and other projects. Her association has worried other countries for geopolitical and geoeconomic reasons, but experts question its scope and its staying power.
“Chinese experts acknowledge that Russia will never accept China as an equal partner in the Arctic, because if it had a partnership in the Arctic, the question would be who would be the number one partner,” Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Chinese foreign policy. at Montclair State University, she said at a recent event organized by the CNA research group.
Their cooperation has been primarily economic, with China providing the necessary investment in Russia’s liquefied natural gas projects and for other infrastructure, although progress has been limited, in part due to China’s Russian caution.
“I think it will be a kind of mixed image with a deeper Russia-China partnership as a whole,” Wishnick said. “But in the Arctic, I think that’s where the brakes will apply to some degree.”
Arctic tanker Christophe de Margerie loads liquefied natural gas at the Yamal LNG plant on the western shore of the Kara Sea on February 19, 2019.
Alexander Ryumin / TASS via Getty Images
China’s recent push to the Arctic should be a reason for countries on the edge of the Arctic to unite, Buchanan said. “It is something that Russia and the West have a common interest to contain.”
Russia knows it depends on China to invest in its Arctic energy projects and is looking for other partners for that reason, Buchanan said.
“The relationship between Russia and China in the Arctic is extremely precarious, but at least both sides acknowledge it. Beijing needs access to Russia. [Northern Sea Route] “to fulfill the ambitions of the Polar Silk Road and for now he will continue to play by the Moscow rules there,” added Buchanan. “The problem is that Moscow cannot trust Beijing to continue to do so.”
‘We are trying to make a deal’
With two icebreakers, China has as many as the United States. However, Russia has more than 40 different sizes operating in the Arctic and the Baltic Sea.
Russia is also increasing the production of nuclear powered icebreakers, and reports that it could arm its icebreakers have worried the United States.
The Coast Guard operates the American Icebreakers, the Healy Medium Icebreaker and the Polar Star Heavy Icebreaker. The Polar Star is over 40 years old and decomposes regularly.
Coast Guard Coast Guard Polar Star on the Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea, January 16, 2017.
US Coast Guard / Chief Warrant Officer David Mosley
The United States is trying to build more polar safety cutters, as its icebreakers are known, by awarding a contract worth up to $ 2 billion for up to three, with the first delivered in 2024 and the third by 2029.
“We have approved … two polar safety cutters for the United States Coast Guard,” Trump said in a speech on July 10. “We are currently building the largest icebreaker in the world, and we are going to try to get, if we can, 10 additional icebreakers.”
“We are trying to come to terms with a certain place that has a lot of icebreakers, and we are looking to see if we can make a really good deal where they can have them very quickly,” Trump said. “We are working on it, and I think we can surprise you.”
It is unclear what Trump was referring to, but earlier this year the White House ordered the Coast Guard and other federal agencies to review plans for the icebreaker fleet, including identification options “to close the gap on available ships. “in late 2021.
The order said the review should “specifically include the operational risk associated with using a leased boat compared to a boat purchased to carry out specific missions.”
