Put simply, “the damn thing melted,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer explained in recent testimony, referring to Arctic ice melt as the trigger for the new U.S. Navy Arctic Strategy that is to be released this summer. What the Navy planned as a 16-year road map is in need of updates after only four years, in part due to receding polar ice caps, which are “opening new trade routes, exposing new resources, and redrawing continental maps,” but also in part due to the rise of China as an “Arctic stakeholder” and increasing important player in the region.
China’s new Arctic policy white paper, released three months before the Navy’s decision to reassess its arctic strategy, envisions a “Polar Silk Road,” using the omnipresent jargon of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative that has come to dominate Chinese foreign policy. That means a new route through the unfrozen Arctic, dominated by Chinese trade and tied into Beijing’s global ambitions.
