WASHINGTON —
Beijing is taking its first steps toward recovering from years of setbacks to its scientific, land-based projects in the Arctic, sending personnel to two outposts that have been vital to its policy of establishing China as a "near-Arctic" state.
China’s Arctic policy , published in 2018, said scientific research to “explore and understand” the Arctic is the "priority and focus" of Chinese participation in Arctic affairs.
Over a 14-year period since 2004, China launched scientific projects in Arctic regions of four Western European nations — Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland — and sought to do the same in a fifth, Denmark’s autonomous island of Greenland.
The Biden administration, which published its own "National Strategy for the Arctic Region" in , said those scientific projects have helped China to increase its influence in the Arctic and “exacerbated" strategic competition in a region where the U.S. has long been a major power.
The U.S. strategy document said China has "used these scientific engagements to conduct dual-use research with intelligence or military applications in the Arctic," requiring the U.S. to respond by positioning itself to “effectively compete and manage tensions” in the region.
China’s state-run newspaper quickly to the U.S. strategy with an article citing Chinese analysts as saying Washington has been "politicizing" China’s activities in the Arctic. It said the analysts see the U.S. "using 'increased competition' as an excuse in trying to control the region after seeing its increasingly prominent economic and military value."
As it snipes publicly at the U.S., Beijing has been less vocal about setbacks to its land-based Arctic scientific projects in recent years and its nascent moves to revive some of them.
Arctic researchers have told VOA that China recently has sent and announced plans to imminently send several people to its two most important scientific outposts in Norway and Iceland after lengthy absences of Chinese scientists from both sites. But there have been no signs of China trying to renew two other scientific projects in Sweden and Finland where national organizations told VOA that Chinese activity is set to end or has ended.
The Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) recently registered three projects in the scientific community of Ny-Alesund in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, where it has rented and operated a Norwegian-owned building since 2004 called Yellow River Station, its first Arctic ground facility. PRIC registered the projects on Norway’s Research in Svalbard .
Scientist Geir Gotaas, leader of the Ny-Alesund Program at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said Chinese personnel have been mostly absent from Yellow River Station since the start of the pandemic because of travel restrictions. He said the last Chinese researcher departed in March after a solo three-month stay at the building, which has a capacity of approximately 10 staff.
Gotaas said four Chinese scientists will arrive in the Norwegian mainland this week before flying to Svalbard, with three staying for a few weeks in Longyearbyen and Ny-Alesund and the fourth remaining at Yellow River Station until March to maintain instruments over winter.
"The Chinese researchers are making a first step towards a return to regular operations in Ny-Alesund," Gotaas said.
In northern Iceland’s Karholl, six Chinese personnel, including four scientists, arrived at the China Iceland Arctic Research Observatory (CIAO) late last month after a three-year Chinese absence from the complex, according to its spokesperson, Halldor Johannsson, director of the Arctic Portal.org news organization.
Johannsson said pandemic travel restrictions had kept the Chinese personnel away from CIAO, which opened in 2018 and is jointly operated by China’s PRIC and the Icelandic Center for Research (Rannis). The recently arrived Chinese contingent has met with local scientists and community leaders and was to depart in early December, he added.
CIAO consists of a new research building and several farmhouses for accommodation and other uses. China fully funded the building’s construction but does not own anything at the site and rents the property from Icelandic nonprofit group Aurora Observatory, Johannsson said.
In northern Sweden’s Esrange Space Center, contracts enabling three Chinese scientific agencies to use four satellite dish antennas built from 2008 to 2016 will not be renewed, according to Philip Ohlsson, Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) head of communications.