Six countries have broken the ice and won Arctic Council observer status at the latest conference. Melting Arctic ice is exciting countries remote from the region, seeking access to promising hydrocarbon deposits and new logistics routes.
Below the ice and cold waters
of the Arctic Ocean are hidden vast natural reserves: approximately
20 per cent of oil reserves worldwide, about 30 per cent of the
planet’s natural gas, there are also believe to be deposits of
platinum, gold and tin — just for starters.
Arctic climate change is progressing twice as fast as in the
rest of the world. As the Arctic ice cap decreases year by year,
the vast Arctic natural resources and sea routes are becoming more
accessible.
This biennial Arctic Council ministerial session has been hosted
in Sweden’s northernmost town of Kiruna. The session has been
attended by top diplomats and officials. Russia’s Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov and the US Secretary of State John Kerry were both
present.
The main intrigue of this year’s session has been the 14 bidding
countries, foremost China, which have been trying to acquire an
observer state status in the council to keep a finger on the
decision-making pulse of the organization, attend the AC meetings
and propose new projects.
The session agreed to grant permanent Arctic Council observer
status to only six states out of 14 bidders: China, India, Italy,
Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
AC observer status can only be granted if all permanent members
of the council agree to it. That did not happen this time to the
EU, for example, the bid of which has been postponed.
Also at the session, Canada took over the chairmanship from
Sweden, which presided in the AC for the last two years.
Tropical icemen: Asian economies ram Arctic access
The biggest Asian economies – Japan, China and India – have all
expressed readiness to join the Arctic race and were introduced to
stage one of the Arctic Council.
But among them there is a country that invested heavily to give
legs to its bid – China.
“Joining the council is more a political statement from
countries like China,” Malte Humpert, an executive director at
the Washington-based nonpartisan think tank Arctic Institute, told
The Wall Street Journal. “The idea of having a seat at the table
in a region that is likely to become another realm of
geopolitics.”
Beijing has been heavily investing into the northern states in
recent years, particularly Iceland, which this April signed a
free-trade deal with Beijing — the first in Europe – and Denmark,
visited by now former Chinese President Hu Jintao in June 2012.
Chinese businessmen are particularly interested in investing in
Denmark’s self-governing Greenland.
Chinese Arctic activities seem to bear fruit as the Nordic
countries finally supported China’s membership of the AC.
“Our opinion is that the countries which have a legitimate
interest in discussing Arctic issues must be accepted as observers
in the Arctic Council,” Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal
said recently in an interview.
China’s main economic rival in Asia, India, also has got on the
Arctic train and is actively attaining commitment of the AC member
states, first and foremost Russia’s — having been Moscow’s most
devoted arms buyer for years now.
It must be mentioned that so far Canada, which will preside in
the council till 2015, has been rather cautious about granting AC
observer status to newcomer nations. Ottawa anticipates that
further expansion of the observer nations might shift the agenda of
the body away from the needs of Arctic indigenous peoples or even
replace the AC gatherings to other places from the actual Arctic
region.
Leona Aglukkaq, the minister of Canada’s Northern Economic
Development Agency, said that admission of new observers is a
“serious issue.”
Aglukkaq, raised in the Arctic himself, shared concern that the
voices of the indigenous participants “are not
diminished.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has specified its stance, pointing
out that a new observer must “respect the Arctic countries’
sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the
Arctic.”
When the Arctic Council was formed in 1996, it was for years
regarded as a coordination body for environmental issues and
scientific research.
But the more the Arctic ice melts, the more persistent prominent
financial capitals are to become regional players in the extreme
north. They realize that the Arctic region’s emergence as a new
geopolitical center is on the horizon.
As of now the Arctic is dominated by the eight member countries
of the Arctic Council, which have de jure divided the region into
zones of national interest and are eager to keep the status
quo.
This article originally appeared on : RT