*Relations on thin ice: a narrative analysis of Chinese governance*, Erin Marie Parsons (II/II)

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Inadequate governance & increased bilateralism

The discourse analysis shows that growing attention is paid in Chinese discourse to the inadequate governance of the region, while increased bilateralism is mentioned in many articles. 

A discursive shift towards greater criticism of the current governance structures in the Arctic shows China propagating a revisionist narrative of Arctic affairs. Discourse has increased on illegitimate and failing governance structures that will ultimately require Chinese participation: “China is not only a ‘stakeholder’ in Arctic affairs, but also a successor to Arctic governance” (Xiao, 2020).² One can see mentions of bilateral ties increasing along with mentions of inadequate governance, while “Common Heritage” remains a central theme that is given less importance by 2020 and 2021. 

US aggression and failure in the Arctic

Chinese media regularly cites US aggression and failure in the Arctic, particularly utilising the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement as a failure on climate change and a major failure in Arctic diplomacy. This is then used to justify increasing scientific research in the Arctic, and by extension, greater Chinese legitimacy. In one article, scientific engagement is explicitly linked with “the national goal”.³ China accuses the US of aggressive Arctic monitoring through the Arctic Mobile Observation System (AMOS) (Lan Haixing et al., 2018) as well as “infiltrating into the Arctic region, in an attempt to compress Russia's space in the Arctic region” (People’s Daily, 2020). Further, on the United States: “According to all kinds of information disclosed in recent years, we all know who in the world is monitoring, stealing secrets and infiltrating other countries on a large scale, maintaining and exerting influence on the polar regions” (“The ‘China Threat Theory’ advocated by the West reflects its mentality of trying to dominate the world forever”) (西方宣扬 ‘中国威胁论’ 反映其妄图永霸世界心态, 2018).⁴

Cultural engagement in a widened imagined community

China is increasingly producing discourse establishing it as a “near-Arctic state”, which is then used to engage culturally with local Arctic communities. By acting as “cultural ambassadors” for the Arctic, this discourse is then used to justify legitimacy in Arctic governance, as well as “Chinese values”. Cultural engagement takes the form of cultural events, movies (for example, the movie The Light Whisperer [光语者 Guāng yǔ zhě] a documentary film about a Chinese man living in the Arctic) and other media that ties Chinese regions to Arctic affairs.

An increase in “near-Arctic state” references

China also discursively refers to itself as a “near-Arctic state” in attempt to legitimise itself as an actor and governance participant in Arctic affairs. By placing itself within the realm of other Arctic Council members and considering itself an Arctic state by geographical distance, China allows itself to participate legitimately in affairs that it should not.

5.2 Russia’s response

Russian discourse in response to China in the Arctic remains highly positive. Considering the Arctic its “backyard” in foreign policy terms, Russia publicly welcomes China into economic and, increasingly, political ventures in the Arctic. Referring to China not as a threat, but as an opportunity for geo-economic ventures including subsea cables, development projects through the Polar Silk Road and Belt Road Initiative, and investments in minerals and oil in the region. 

Notably, Russian discourse on China in the Arctic increasingly focuses on mechanisms of governance as an opportunity for furthering the relationship between the two traditionally separate countries. Increasingly in 2019 and 2020 discourse, topics of norm development permeated Russian discourse on China, particularly as a backlash against the “Western” norms of NATO and the liberal values of US foreign policy. It is within this context that Russian discourse is able to find solidarity with illiberal Chinese policies, taking a more directly oppositional approach to NATO and the United States via China’s participation as a legitimate actor in Arctic governance.

5.3 NATO’s response

 In spite of their thematic similarity, Russian discourse directly challenges NATO discourse on China in the Arctic, which increasingly sees Russia and China as illiberal partners in Arctic affairs. However, while NATO’s discourse on China in the Arctic sees China as a direct threat, recognition of these potential threats has only materialised in the last two years and remains relatively weak as compared to US discourse. China is seen not as a current but a future threat challenging the norms and values of NATO’s security perspectives in the region.
 NATO did not recognise China as a threat to Arctic affairs until 2019: “It was actually at our summit in 2019 … that was the first time we as an Alliance, made common decisions, had agreed language on how to address the rise of China” (“Discussion with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg”, 2021). Now that NATO finds itself focusing on issues of sea, space and cyber, and with an increasing understanding that China does impact NATO and cannot be ignored, recognition of the need for greater governance architecture and norm development underpins much of the discussion on China in the Arctic.

Further, NATO discourse on China in the Arctic appears to find China to be a threat economically through the increasingly recognised geo-economic security issues associated with high foreign direct investment in the region. This ultimately leaves a discourse that is ruptured, bifurcated between a diplomatic insistence that China is not a security threat in the region, and the recognition that the normative values underpinning NATO are threatened by Chinese and Russian joint participation. NATO vacillates between describing China not as a threat but as an opportunity, and as a threat to the broader norms and values of NATO as an institution.

6. ANALYSIS

6.1 A China seeking legitimacy & challenging governance

The results demonstrate a China that is seeking to find legitimacy in the Arctic through scientific diplomacy, a universalist approach to Arctic conceptualisations, and developmental projects that retain a respect for sovereignty not seen in “Western” approaches. China has successfully established itself as an actor in the Arctic – if not in the Arctic Council – via this discourse. Scientific research, and by extension scientific diplomacy, is utilised as a means to justify China’s increasing presence in the Arctic through an historically centred narrative that implies a lengthy and close relationship between China and the Arctic region. This is explicitly stated when China’s claims itself to be a “near-Arctic state” that has been involved in Arctic research and diplomacy since the Spitsbergen Treaty in 1920 (now the Svalbard Treaty). This is complemented by a discourse that is inherently internationalist in scope on Arctic affairs: “[the] Arctic impacts not just arctic countries but has a global significant and international influence” (Yuan Yong, 2018), and can be seen further in repeated phrases throughout Chinese discourse such as, “No offside, No absence”, which implies that China is prepared to justify a permanent position in Arctic affairs.   

However, the discursive methodology – here focused on foreign or “outwardly-focused” discourse – varies between that and domestic or “internally focused” discourse. While externally focused discourse retains a cooperative, multilateral lens of “win–win” diplomacy, Chinese domestic discourse takes a more militarised and securitised approach to Arctic engagement that accepts geopolitical and geo-economic competition in the changing region as a result of failed governance.

China appears to use its increasing legitimacy in Arctic affairs to challenge a fractured governance architecture. This can be seen in its aggressive bilateral investments and the corresponding political ties that come with them. Again, it is worth mentioning the example of Norway and the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Liu Xiaobo in 2006, which resulted in a six-year trade freeze that badly damaged the Norwegian economy. In similar bouts of politicised pressure, China’s attempted purchase of the northernmost region of Iceland and the resulting fall-out demonstrate that the “debt-trap diplomacy” seen in other parts of the world may be making its way to the Arctic. “Debt-trap diplomacy” or “debt diplomacy” operates in cadence with the Belt and Road Initiative and high developmental investments that are over-credited and exchanged for political pressure. As this expands into the Arctic region with an increasingly powerful China, the country seeks to destabilise governance mechanisms enough to place itself within the realm of relevant actors through openings of what is here termed political convolution. By deliberately inserting itself in gaps in the governance architecture, particularly via new mechanisms of governance and security not traditionally accounted for in international relations, like geo-economics, which lacks the regulatory oversight and historical understanding institutions require to govern it, China uses political convolution to create openings and a place for itself in regions, creating new forms of institutional design. It does this through economic and political influence under the strategy of the Belt Road Initiative, and here, the Polar Silk Road.  

Political convolution works for China as a cyclical tool to increase legitimacy while simultaneously introducing new concepts in Arctic governance: that the Arctic is a unique area that is inherently modern in its centralisation around the impacts of climate change and global warning; that the Arctic is and has been a global arena not defined by regional and national architecture; and that the Arctic – a region “undiscovered” and “being realized” in real time –should be governed by the laws of geo-economics within the conceptualisation of the Belt and Road Initiative. Hence, it should no longer be defined by “Western” conceptions of liberalism. It is here that China strives for prestige and modernisation in its fullest and most nationalistic form in a globe not defined by two poles but by three: the North Pole, the South Pole and the Chinese (Tibetan) Plateau, referred to as the “roof of the world” (Qiu, 2008: 1) in Chinese discourse.

What makes this governance destabilisation particularly concerning is the uniquely enmeshed system China operates in as an authoritarian state. With economic and military activities inherently intertwined, economic participation cannot be separated as distinctly as with open markets, with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and civilian infrastructure development operating in the same realm as national defence. All Chinese companies are legally required to “support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts” and government intelligence agencies are legally able to access, even forcibly, any information stored by Chinese companies. This means that, regardless of a company’s active complicity in government strategy, the only safe assumption is that any information collected by Chinese companies and held on Chinese servers can be exploited by the Chinese government towards the national goal (Kitchen, 2019: 2–5).

Ultimately, while China does not exhibit an aggressively illiberal outward narrative in its Arctic affairs, its narrative has been co-opted by a more forward Russian discourse, making it appear that Sino–Russian Arctic cooperation is increasing and that the two nations form a sort of loose alliance. This illiberal narrative is often centred around anti-American stances on militarisation, domestic engagement and issues of sovereignty seen in other Chinese and Russian discourses towards the United States. Whether this discursive strategy says something about Chinese policy remains unclear, and it is ultimately argued here that this Sino–Russian cooperation narrative is largely meaningless for China, being an empty threat against liberal forces in the Arctic. An examination of Chinese and Russian discourse finds that each country loosely mirrors the other in anti-American and sovereignty discourse, without an obvious active strategy in international dealings. Rather these discourses are primarily domestic in nature, seeking to impact internal policies and public opinion towards Western countries.

6.2 Discourse reception: Russia and NATO

Russia, which arguably has as much to gain – and more to lose – in Arctic affairs any other country, is increasingly deploying a discourse that piggybacks off China’s, co-opting the usual anti-American, pro-sovereignty discourse of China to frame Sino–Russian cooperation as an act of illiberal partnership. Even with increasing economic partnerships in Arctic affairs, it remains unclear whether China and Russia are partners in the region beyond what is purely necessary, particularly when most of this discourse is internally focused and domestic, rather than from the ministries of foreign affairs. One can see that Russia is increasingly using China as a fallback for its negative relations with its Arctic partners – most of which are NATO members and US allies –while China gains from the support of Russian discourse in its bilateral relations with the country.

Until 2019, NATO did not mention China at all in its risk assessments. China’s arrival in the Arctic and wider European region can be seen as the main reason for NATO’s increasing concerns – as the discourse explicitly says – because NATO does not focus on Asia–Pacific affairs unless they directly impact European affairs. Asia–Pacific securitisation efforts are generally led by the United States, with NATO entrusting itself to focus on the Euro-region. The Belt and Road Initiative and the Polar Silk Road, now impacting European economic engagement and security, have only recently forced NATO to begin considering China a threat in the region. However, NATO discourse since 2018 has retained a significant focus on China within its “Sea, Space, and Cyber” lens, repeatedly declaring China “not a threat, but an opportunity” and stating the need to engage on these issues. Besides illustrating the dated and delayed nature of NATO analyses, this shows a NATO unwilling to present a clear narrative on its perspectives of China – simultaneously recognising the country as a threat to Arctic engagement, but also retaining an “opportunity”-based discourse. This may be partially because NATO’s role in Arctic governance remains under challenge. While five Arctic countries are NATO members (Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and the United States) and two are potential members (Finland and Sweden), NATO does not possess a clear mandate for its role in Arctic affairs. This results in a NATO that does not see China as the main immediate threat, and a mildly confused discourse that has yet to respond to China’s increasing engagement. NATO may thus be seen as a late actor in engaging with China in the region – eventually, though not yet – to connect its analyses of “Sea, Space, and Cyber” with Chinese Arctic policy.

6.3 Future threats to Arctic governance

Geo-economics as a governance fallback

With the lack of incentive for Arctic nations to establish a supranational body that may threaten sovereignty and the increasing need for more resources by wealthy nations, the Arctic risks becoming a region ruled not by governance mechanisms, but by the inherently deregulated and geo-economic tendencies of the region developed amidst the civilian–military fusion of modern economies. Deregulated in its development, and without solid regional governance, FDI and trade-centric policies may leave an Arctic defined by private sector infrastructure.

An Arctic “String of Pearls”

The “String of Pearls” concept, which envisages a strategy of Chinese bases stretching from the Middle East to southern China to protect its maritime operations and energy access is one that can be applied to future Arctic affairs. In an increasingly resource-starved world, Chinese Arctic discourse appears strategically oriented towards a future where the Arctic is the last remnant of oil and rare earth element (REE) access. Strategic “long game” approaches to becoming a world power aside, the Belt and Road Initiative certainly reflects an anxiety about the economic implications of a faltering energy sector, making the String of Pearls a conceptually relevant theory here.

By way of creating openings through political convolution, China may establish itself –first discursively, then physically – through bases and “research centres” that span the Arctic. The String of Pearls theory, which operates in an arena where China has historically been a member – South Asia and the Pacific – is becoming established in the Arctic and realised through scientific diplomacy centres. This realisation is happening rapidly, and one can expect to find numerous scientific research centres and other bilateral centres involving China opening in the coming years. This follows the general trend of Chinese operations working under the guise of other countries – for example, Chinese shipping and maritime operations in the Arctic are frequently through Greek and Russian carriers, confusing efforts to establish a clear national presence.

The Arctic as a gauge for national identity

Ultimately the Arctic may find itself becoming a pivot point for national identities. As more countries crystallise their Arctic policies around modern themes of geo-economic competition, climate change, the Right to Protect and multilateral cultural engagement, the Arctic may become a gauge for national identities in the 21^st century. So crucial to discussions on climate change, institutional failure and multilevel governance architecture, national and international identities may increasingly use the Arctic to declare themselves modern nations. Countries may use the Arctic to confer upon themselves prestige and modernity in their discourse via participation in a region that is so distant, shifting and extreme – at the edge of the world and synonymous with the final frontier. Arctic discourse may ultimately be a canvas on which countries can expound their values, their influence and their extremity in much the same way outer space politics operate now. Here China will find itself at the farther point possible, the North Pole, fully realised as a country rebounding from a once-closed economy that is open now to the entire globe and beyond.

These threats can be seen to inform the literature in broader terms regarding geo-political shifts in the Arctic – showing a move towards geo-economic forces where FDI and trade dominate governance forces in the region. This may have a profound impact beyond the Arctic on the international order, if a shift away from liberal institutionalism occurs, first regionally and then globally, as institutions continue to fail to respond to contemporary issues. Additionally, geo-economic approaches to norm contestation may be seen more broadly in nations seeking to become leaders in global governance, particularly as the international order becomes more dominated by unregulated forces.

7. CONCLUSION

The Arctic is a shifting landscape that is no longer defined by frozen stagnancy but by rapid change. It is through the Arctic that 21^st century challenges of climate change, multilateral governance, geo-economics and geopolitics will be seen most clearly by the international community – a bright arena where US, Chinese and Russian grand strategies converge. Further examinations and deeper scholarship using strategic foresight, case study analysis and both qualitative and quantitative analyses are necessary for both the academic community and national governments to better predict and understand future challenges in the region before governance policies crystallise, which, in their current states, are fractured and ultimately fractionable in light of these new challenges. Greater attention to multilevel governance mechanisms, the limitations of state actor-led organisations like the Arctic Council and the role of discourse in securitising international affairs is increasingly necessary. This research serves as a basis for continuing study on these topics.

This research has established the importance of Chinese, Russian and NATO discourse in understanding Arctic strategy. It has also shown notable themes and patterns in Chinese discourse since 2018, demonstrating through inductive qualitative content analysis that China has shifted its discourse from one of scientific exploration and multilateral communicative engagement towards one of commercial, militarised geo-economic gain. The discourse has shown that while China began its Arctic legitimacy through scientific endeavours, it has ultimately pursued a discourse centred around US failure in the region, its own legitimacy as an actor in the Arctic, and its right to access commercialised products via a physical presence. Further, China has embraced a cultural stance of being a “near-Arctic state” that embodies the cultural values of indigenous Arctic peoples. It is through this discourse that China has effectively established itself as a legitimate actor in the Arctic – if not in the Arctic Council – and may seek to create openings through political convolution via bilateral investments, commercial participation and the enmeshment of private FDI with the national goal. Therefore, further work to map Chinese investments in research, academic exchanges, bilateral and multilateral conferences on Arctic affairs, publications in Chinese and scientific diplomacy by Chinese actors would be highly beneficial.

With a host of uncertainties as to how the dynamics of the Arctic will proceed in the future, the literature remains lacking in Arctic foresight strategies, instead focusing on explanations of why the dynamics are rapidly shifting. This research presents a future Arctic that acts as a “String of Pearls” in China’s great energy game, an Arctic that defines national identities and acts as a lightning rod for modernity and extremity in a well-explored and established world. The presentation of the openings and political convolutions theory, by which China places itself within the gaps of governance architectures in new 21^st century arenas to declare a position for itself with legitimacy and confidence, adds greatly to the present scholarship on Chinese Arctic affairs.

Finally, this article serves as a basis for further scholarship on Chinese identity formation and shifts through discursive analyses, which would be further complemented by more quantitative studies of content analysis that utilise fragmented meaning units or cross-case analyses of Chinese identity in different contexts. This may lend itself towards a better understanding of the Arctic Council dynamics and identity formation surrounding China as it crystallises its Arctic policy and legitimises itself during a time of rapid change.

The research presented here, while robust, is not without limitations. Issues of multicollinearity are present, much like other discursive studies, due to the inherently challenging nature of mapping social and political concepts into distinct groups. Language barriers and translation challenges also exist and researchers with language skills in Russian and French (for NATO) may be better able to analyse the texts included in this analysis. Further, analysing national goals always remains arduous in social science research, as it is never safe to assume that one actor is participating fully in a national goal or strategy. Like other grand strategy analyses, this research suffers from an inability to fully analyse national systems as one distinct body with one distinct and established goal. However, these issues are considered and the research remains strong.

Ultimately, the Arctic, like outer space, is becoming a frontier to be crossed, a region where powerful nations seek to define themselves and their legitimacy through research, economic prowess and development. Without a concrete governance structure to respond to these challenges, the Arctic is at increasing risk of becoming a region of conflict, geo-economics and unregulated great power competition that ignores the fundamental problems of climate change and indigenous rights that must remain central to Arctic policy.

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Notes:

1- Original Text: 积极促进北极数字互联互通和逐步构建国际性基础设施网络等

2- Original Text: “中国不仅是北 极事务的"利益攸关方",也是北极治理的后来者”

3- Original Text: 如科学计划与国家目标挂钩. 

4- Original Text: 你心里怎么想，你眼里的世界就是什么样。从这个意义上讲，世界上最大的情报头目说出那样的话，并不奇怪。”外交部发言人华春莹1日在例行记者会上用“相由心生”一词回应美澳情报部门的“中国间谍威胁论”，狠狠打了发言者一巴掌。“事实胜于雄辩。根据近年来披露出的各种信息，世界上到底是谁在对其他国家实施大范围监听、监控、窃密、渗透，无所不用其极地维持并施加影响力，大家心中其实都很清楚

 DOI: https://doi.org/10.24241/docCIDOB.2022

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