The Diplomat published an article titled, “China’s Busy Year in the Arctic”. The article reads in part as follows:
January 2018 saw the first formulation of an official Chinese Arctic policy in the release of its Arctic White Paper. Besides laying out the country’s interests and intents in the region, the white paper made official a vocabulary that sought to emphasize Beijing’s growing role as a major stakeholder in the Arctic by announcing China to be a “near-Arctic state” — argued mainly on the grounds of (relative) geographical proximity and the adverse effects that a warming Arctic would have on China’s coastal areas and various industrial and agricultural sectors. The document also sought to fold the “Polar Silk Road” — a predominantly China-Russian partnership established a year prior — into the greater Belt and Road Initiative.
