Sino File | Chill out China and America, the Arctic is not worth a cold war

With polar ice caps melting faster than expected, a new ocean is emerging – and along with it the prospect of new shipping lines and untapped resources

Also emerging: a new arena for conflict and an environmental disaster

Reading Time:3 minutes

A polar bear in the Canadian Arctic. Climate scientists say the Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the world since 1988. Photo: AP

Published: 8:30am, 20 May 2019Updated: 8:30am, 20 May 2019

It is ironic that faster-than-expected climate change has created a new economic opportunity in the Arctic just as environmentalists start talking up a “blue economy” based on the sustainable use of ocean resources.

Thanks to global warming and the melting of the ice caps, a new ocean is steadily emerging and with it the prospects of new shipping lanes and access to hitherto untapped natural resources.

But the geopolitical risks involved in exploiting these opportunities – to say nothing of the environmental consequences – may well outweigh the commercial benefits.

That’s because these newly accessible commercial opportunities increase the risk that the Arctic could become a new arena of conflict in the deteriorating relationship between the world’s greatest powers – the United States, China and Russia.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made no secret of the rivalry when he described the region recently as “an arena of global power and competition”.

Participants at the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Photo: EPA

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