Exploring Sino-Russian-Nordics triangular relations: complex balancing along the Polar Silk Road

ABSTRACT

The megatrends of climate change, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the Western sanctions against Russia have made the once calm Arctic an arena of geopolitical competition. Before the Crimea crisis of 2014, the Nordics were the primary advocates for a Chinese role in the Arctic when Russia was still hesitant. In 2017 Russia and China agreed to build a Polar Silk Road along the Northern Sea Route, which complements China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road plans. Russia financially depends on China for its aspirational Arctic plans. Meanwhile, China increasingly perceives the five Nordic states as a unit to negotiate projects under the Belt and Road Initiative and suggested a 5 + 1 format. Thus, China’s rising Arctic presence made the age-old Nordics-Russia relations triangular.

What does the Sino-Russian strategic partnership mean for the Nordics’ preference formation concerning the Polar Silk Road? This paper traces the triangular ties before and after the Crimea crisis and finds that the actors switched from liberal towards defensive neorealist perspectives. The Nordics have become worried about the Sino-Russian Arctic honeymoon, Russia’s Arctic military assertiveness and China’s intentions. As the triangular links are out-of-balance, the Nordics might apply complex balancing to achieve collective goods along the Northern Sea Route.

KEYWORDS:

• Belt and Road Initiative
• Barents
• geopolitics
• defensive neorealism
• Euro-Arctic
• connectivity

Acknowledgments

I am thankful to my student and project assistant Pin Yen TSAI, who supported my research on this article.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

There is no financial interest directly applicable.

Notes

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2. ‘Arctic Corridor’, https://arcticcorridor.fi/(accessed 3 April 2021).

3. Several major book publications analysed the emergence of triangular relations of the EU concerning China, such as Wouters, Defraigne, and Burnay (2015) and Berkofsky et al. (2019). The China-Africa Southern ties impact the EU’s Africa policy; hence, the relations became triangular (Stahl 2017).

4. The Arctic Policies of the eight Arctic Council members and non-Arctic states are on the Arctic Portal, Arctic Policy Database, Arctic https://arcticportal.org/arctic-governance/arctic-policies-database (accessed May 22 2020).

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6. Arctic Portal, International Agreements, https://arcticportal.org/arctic-governance/international-agreements (accessed 8 April 2021).

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11. Table leans on Zhang Chun, China’s Arctic Silk Road projects, ChinadialogueOcean, January 9 2020, https://chinadialogueocean.net/12569-chinas-arctic-silk-road-projects/(accessed April 6 2021), added by authors information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under Grant [108-2410-H-032 −040].