Аutor: Elizabeth Economy
Sourse: Foreign Affairs
OUT IN THE COLD
The deep ocean is hardly the only frontier that Xi wants to master. In 2014, he also declared his intent to make China a great polar power. Like the seabed, the Arctic is rich in natural resources, containing an estimated 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil supplies, 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas, and significant stores of rare-earth elements. As the ice there melts, it will also be home to new shipping corridors—like the one used by the Istanbul Bridge. In a 2018 white paper on the Arctic, Beijing promised to build a “polar Silk Road” by developing such routes and investing in the region’s resources and infrastructure. It also reframed Arctic governance to include issues such as climate change and to advance the rights of non-Arctic countries. “The future of the Arctic concerns the interests of the Arctic states, the well-being of non-Arctic states, and that of humanity as a whole,” the paper declared. “The governance of the Arctic requires the participation and contribution of all stakeholders.”
Beijing’s interest in the Arctic is not new. In 1964, China established the State Oceanic Administration, a government agency whose mandate included conducting polar expeditions. Its Arctic-related research accelerated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1989, the government founded the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute, and it expanded its Arctic research capabilities and partnerships throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2013, China became an observer to the governing Arctic Council, which consists of representatives of Canada, Denmark (which includes Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, as well as indigenous peoples. Since then, China has become one of the council’s most active observer members, participating in a wide array of working groups and task forces. Chinese researchers continue to argue that China should play a larger role in Arctic decision-making because climate change has made the Arctic an issue of global commons and because Chinese companies are essential to Arctic shipping and energy.
Beijing’s efforts have encountered resistance. Arctic countries have grown concerned about becoming overreliant on Chinese investment and the resulting security risks. Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden all rejected or canceled a number of Chinese Arctic projects in their territories. According to a 2025 study by the Belfer Center, of China’s 57 proposed investment projects in the Arctic, only 18 are active.
But while democratic countries have mostly closed themselves off to new Chinese investment, a different kind of state has opened its doors: Russia. Since 2018, China and Russia have institutionalized their bilateral consultations on the Arctic. Their relationship became especially pronounced after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 and was economically isolated from the rest of the Arctic Council’s members. Since then, Chinese companies have signed agreements to develop a titanium mine and a lithium deposit, as well as to construct a new railway and deep-water port. Together, China and Russia’s capabilities for Arctic exploration, commerce, and patrol far exceed those of the United States. China has also used its partnership with Russia to enhance its military access to the region. Starting in 2022, the two countries have even conducted multiple joint exercises, including in the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and the greater Arctic Ocean, as well as a joint bomber patrol near the coast of Alaska. Beijing and Moscow have also teamed up to bring the BRICS more directly into Arctic discussions. They established a BRICS working group on ocean and polar science and technology, and Russia has invited the body to develop an international scientific station on the Svalbard archipelago.
China’s outreach, however, has come up short. Brazilian and Indian engagement with the Arctic has been primarily through bilateral partnerships with Russia. Some Indian analysts have expressed outright concern about China’s expanding role in the region. And despite the seeming alignment between China and Russia, Moscow has not supported Beijing’s pitch for an expanded role in Arctic governance. Their shared military exercises are largely performative. In 2020, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy to the Arctic Council, Nikolai Korchunov, agreed with then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s comment that there are two groups of countries, Arctic and non-Arctic, and suggested that China had no Arctic identity. That same year, Moscow charged a Russian professor who studies the Arctic with high treason after he provided China with classified materials relating to submarine detection methods.
BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
Then there is the final frontier: space. As early as 1956, China deemed space exploration a national security priority. On the heels of the Soviet and U.S. satellite launches in 1957 and 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong pronounced, “We too shall make satellites.” The country then followed through, launching Dong Fang Hong 1 into orbit in April 1970.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, China created an extensive space program driven by scientific, economic, and military imperatives. In 2000, the government published its first white paper outlining its priorities in outer space. They included making use of the resources of space, achieving crewed spaceflight, and undertaking space explorations centered on the moon. Space is also a particular priority for Xi. “Developing the space program and turning the country into a space power is the space dream that we have continuously pursued,” he said in 2013. In 2017, China laid out a road map to become a “world-leading space power by 2045,” with planned major breakthroughs. It has delivered: in addition to its advancing commercial space program, China has developed sophisticated space warfare capabilities, including a growing constellation of reconnaissance, communications, and early warning satellites. Of the more than 700 satellites that China has placed in orbit, over one-third serve military purposes. The country’s 2022 white paper heralded all this progress. Some U.S. space officials and experts believe that China will surpass the United States as the leading space-faring nation within the next five to ten years, including by being the first to return humans to the moon since the U.S. Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
As with the deep seabed, China’s significant technological capabilities and the frontier’s more open governance enable Beijing to play a significant leadership role in space. Beijing has become an important partner for other less developed countries interested in space research and exploration. It boasts bilateral agreements with 26 states. It also collaborates with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs to carry out experiments from its Tiangong space station.
Beijing’s most meaningful bid for space leadership, however, is the planned International Lunar Research Station, a joint effort between China and Russia first announced in 2017. It is slated to begin as a permanent base at the moon’s south pole and eventually expand into a network of orbital and surface facilities supporting exploration, resource extraction, and long-term habitation. China aims to get 50 countries, 500 international research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS by offering them opportunities for scientific training, cooperation, and access to some Chinese and Russian space technologies. To that end, it has pitched the ILRS through multilateral organizations, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Beijing and Moscow have positioned the ILRS as an alternative to the U.S.-led Artemis program—Washington’s attempt to get back to the moon—and to the Artemis Accords. The accords, established in 2020 by the United States and seven other countries, set forth nonbinding principles and guidelines for peaceful space exploration, the use of space resources, the preservation of space heritage, interoperability, and the sharing of scientific data. The accords are designed to be consistent with existing international space treaties and conventions; as of early November, 60 countries have signed on.
One senior Chinese expert described the accords as an American attempt to colonize and establish “sovereignty over the moon.” But China has been relatively unsuccessful at drawing countries into its venture. The ILRS has attracted only 11 states in addition to China and Russia, several of which have either no space program or only a nascent one. Two of the countries that joined the ILRS, Senegal and Thailand, later also joined the Artemis Accords. The broader appeal of the latter stems from several factors. Unlike the ILRS, the accords build on existing scientific, security, and commercial relations between NASA and other countries. They provide smaller states with opportunities to advance their own space industries. They offer clear norms of transparency, interoperability, and data sharing, and they do not entangle countries in Russia’s isolation from much of the world’s economic and scientific endeavors. Finally, unlike with the ILRS, countries that sign the Artemis Accords will have an opportunity to send their astronauts to the moon through NASA’s lunar program.