Asia Approaches the Arctic

Russia and China have established a joint Arctic research centre at the Far Eastern Federal University and Harbin Polytechnic University. This achievement is yet another example of the growing interest that Asian countries and China in particular are taking in the Arctic. New Asian Perspectives has decided to recall other recent events demonstrating Asia’s turn to the Arctic.

It is well known that the key event took place in 2013, when India, China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan joined the Arctic Council as observers. The first China–Korea–Japan Arctic talks were held in April 2016. Curiously, this September, just as the news of the establishment of the Russia–China Arctic Centre was announced, the United States, which is currently the Arctic Council chairman, held its first summit at the level of science ministers.

Picture: FEFU Press Service

The joint statement issued after the summit notes, in particular, that both Japan and Singapore not only carry out fundamental research, but also monitor Arctic climate and Arctic ice with the more applied and political and economic purposes of understanding the consequences of maritime shipping. It is possible that the uncertainty that still surrounds the South China Sea will prompt additional interest in developing various alternative plans for countries that greatly depend on the Asian maritime routes. In their turn, Norwegian researches exhibited an interest in comparing security regimes in the Barents Sea and in East Asian waters.

The “Japan-Russia Expert Education Project” mentioned at the ministerial summit is also worth mentioning here. The project trains professionals to work on the sustainable development of the Far East and the Arctic. It would be apt to recall the opinion of the observer states that Russia supported Japan’s bid for observer status even more strongly that it had supported China’s, despite the overall differences in the bilateral relations.

Finally, we should recall that CEO of Japan Bank for International Cooperation Tadashi Maeda announced at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vlapostok that his bank was ready to loan Novatek gas company $400 million for the Yamal LNG project. Maeda said that successful completing the Yamal LNG would allow the parties to move on to potential participation in the Arctic LNG-2 project. Such actions probably testify to the desire of the Japanese leadership, if not to catch up with China, which has invested about 10.6 billion euros in Yamal LNG, then at least not to lag too far behind. South Korea, in its turn, is also keeping up its pace: in mid-September, an icebreaker on an expedition organized by the Korea Polar Research Institute discovered new reserves of gas hydrates in the Eastern Siberia Sea.

Arctic circle

Kazuko Shiraishi, Ambassador in charge of Arctic Affairs

It should be noted that in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, the Sakhalin Energy Consortium, of which Japan’s Mitsui and Mitsubishi are members, used a number of engineering technologies developed throughout the entire Asia Pacific region in its oil producing activities: originally, these technologies had been developed in Australia for Canada’s Arctic regions and were subsequently further improved by them with the participation of Japanese and Korean companies.

The three areas of Russia–Japan cooperation in the Arctic fit within the topics summarized by Kazuko Shiraishi, Japan’s Ambassador in charge of Arctic affairs: research, the Northern Sea Route and the Yamal LNG project. In October 2015, Shiraishi described Japan’s first Arctic policy concept, where Russia is mentioned in connection with the Arctic Sea Route and as one of the countries where Japan intends to set up research and observation stations. Thus, at the current stage, scientific and technological diplomacy appears to be the key engine behind the Arctic cooperation among Asian countries, and political and economic diplomacy could benefit from some more ice-breaking as well.