China, India enter heating-up
Arctic race By Raja Murthy
MUMBAI - The frozen world of the Arctic is
warming up as a new frontier of the great power
game for energy resources, with India, China and
Japan seeking stakes in the ecologically and
economically sensitive region.
The Asian
powers have asked to be "permanent observers" in
the Arctic Council of eight countries that have
Arctic territory. But existing official members
and direct Arctic stakeholders [1], including the
United States and Russia, are not exactly jumping
with joy about the idea.
The indigenous
Arctic people though, like the Inuit, have said
they have no objection to the Arctic Council being
made more inclusive to the rest of the world, as
long as the voice of the original
inhabitants is not
ignored. Recent scientific studies have
established Asian ancestry of many of the Arctic
tribes.
Canada, which will be the next
Arctic Council chairman in 2013, heads the debate
about admitting emerging powers like India, China
and Brazil join the North Pole party. The issue
was top of agenda at the two-day meeting of the
Council on January 17 and 18. Over 15 nations
participated in this second annual Munk-Gordon
Arctic Security Conference at Toronto, Canada, to
decide the future of the Arctic.
The
debate, becoming more inevitable and louder, is
whether to continue reserving the Arctic region
for countries with Arctic territory, or to share
its vast resources with the rest of the world.
The Arctic - the region that is the land
of the midnight sun, home to the polar bear,
headquarters of Santa Claus, and stage to the
greatest light show on Earth - the spectacular
Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis [2] - spreads
across 21 million square kilometers (8.1 million
square miles) of land and 13 million square
kilometers of icy seas.
This northernmost
part of Earth looms in 21st century importance as
a vast buried treasure of oil, gas, coal and
minerals such as zinc and silver, as a key region
for studying global warming, and as significant
gateway for maritime trade between Asia, Europe
and North America. Arctic sea lanes reduce
distances by thousands of kilometers.
In
particular, two crucial routes could dramatically
increase Arctic shipping from the current annual
average of about 15,000 vessels:
Canada's Northwest Passage, north of Alaska,
linking Japan to eastern Canada.
Russia's Northeast Passage, between Greenland
and Russia, connecting China to Europe. Called the
Russian Northern Sea Route, this oceanic shortcut
lopes off thousands of kilometers between Europe
and Asia, compared to sailing through the Panama
Canal.
In August 2011, the Russian super
tanker Vladimir Tikhonov, carrying a cargo
of natural gas condensate from Murmansk to
Thailand, became the largest vessel to complete
the Northern Sea Route - which was both good and
bad news. The Arctic ice melting to this extent to
allow shipping meant a significantly shorter sea
route, but it also meant an increase in global
warming - and predicted disasters like excessive
melting of polar ice causing global sea levels to
rise and flood coastal cities worldwide.
If predictions of the Arctic being ice
free in summer by year 2030 are accurate, the
Northern Hemisphere sea lanes could gain in
importance to match the Panama and Suez Canals.
China is increasingly interested in the Arctic
routes as they cut short hauling its exports to
Europe by nearly half the distance, from 15,000
miles to about 8,000 miles.
Ironically,
Russia - despite being part of the BRICS club of
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - is
among the loudest protesters against expanding the
Arctic Council to include fellow BRICS members.
Both India and China already have an
Arctic presence, with research stations in
Norway's northern Svalbard Archipelago. India's
Arctic observatory - called the "Himadri" - in
Sanskrit language, meaning snow-capped mountains
of the Himalayas - is a three-year-old study
station in New Aalesund, Spitsbergen. It is the
largest research station in Norway's Svalbard
archipelago or group of islands, which is located
about 1,200 km from the North Pole.
Also
in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, is the Chinese Arctic
Yellow River Station that the Beijing-based Arctic
and Antarctic Administration established in July
2004. The two-story building includes labs,
office, lobby, storage facilities and a dormitory
for about 25 scientists.
Besides the
Indian and Chinese research stations, Svalbard
also hosts Japanese, Norwegian, Dutch, German,
British, French and Italian Arctic study stations
[3].
The latest Indian expedition to the
Arctic, from May 14 to June 8, 2011, had a
five-member team from the National Institute of
Oceanography and the National Center for Antarctic
and Ocean Research (NCAOR) collecting data for
climate change from the Kongsforden Fjord.
"The effects of climatic change are more
prominently seen at Arctic," explained expedition
chief scientist Dr Prasanna Kumar, "and therefore
such studies are not only important to India but
to the whole community on this planet".
The Indian expedition was part of global
efforts to study the vicious circle of the
decreasing glacier cover in the Arctic. The
reduced ice reduces the Arctic capacity to absorb
increasing carbon levels in the atmosphere,
thereby adding to global warming; and the global
warming in turn more quickly reduces the Arctic
ice.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace
and Arctic countries are concerned about pollution
increasing from more sea traffic, particularly
ships spewing out black carbon. Commercial
activity will only grow with many other non-Arctic
nations, including South Korea and the European
Union, officially lining up for a share of the
region's resources.
India is already an
observer in the International Arctic Science
Committee (IASC) based in Potsdam, Germany, which
in turn holds observer status in the Arctic
Council. Now India has applied to the IASC in its
next meeting from 19 to 22 April in Montreal,
Canada, to join China and Japan as full members
[4].
While India's Arctic interests are
currently more of a scientific nature, China's
military has already expressed a strategic
interest. "The Arctic belongs to all the people
around the world as no nation has sovereignty over
it," said then former Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo in
2010. Zhuo said China, being home to one-fifth of
the world's population, was entitled to Arctic
resources.
China is not wasting any time
establishing its polar stakes. By 2015, China
plans to launch three Arctic expeditions and five
Antarctic research expeditions. China has also
commissioned a new polar ice-breaker ship, its
second after the Xuelong, or snow dragon.
Powerful ice-breaking ships are a key
investment for countries having major interests in
the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, as a necessity
for all-year access through the ice. India is
planning to build an icebreaker, reported Dinesh
Sharma in the India Today news fortnightly.
The US has only working ice breaker the
USCGC Healy, and the US Navy is pushing
hard for upgrading its fleet in the Arctic.
Testifying before the US Congress last December on
protecting American interests in the Arctic, Rear
Admiral Jeffrey M Garrett, US Coast Guard, said.
"The Icebreaker fleet represents the main surface
presence that the US can exert in what is
essentially a maritime domain in the Arctic
Ocean." Russia has a fleet of over 25
ice-breakers, including six nuclear-powered ones.
The choice before the US, Russia and other
Arctic nations is whether inclusion of China,
India and other countries in the literally
global-warming Arctic race would mean: a) many
hands making light work to unearth Arctic
resources for benefit of all beings, or b) whether
it would have too many cooks spoiling the Arctic
broth.
Notes 1. Full
members of the Arctic Council are Canada, Russia,
USA, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark
(Greenland) - the eight countries with Arctic
territory. Six northern indigenous groups of
people living in the Arctic - the Inuit
Circumpolar Council, Arctic Athabaska Council,
Gwich'in Council International, Sami Council,
Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of
the North and Aleut International Association, are
influential permanent participants. Six non-Arctic
nations are observers: the UK, France, Germany,
Spain, Poland and the Netherlands. 2.
Compilation of the amazing Aurora Borealis or the
Northern Lights in YouTube
and National Geographic YouTube
time lapse video of the Aureo Borealis across one
single night in Norway. 3. Indian, Chinese and
other international Arctic research labs, report
by the National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean
Research, Goa, western India. 4. International
Arctic Science Committee Council members: Canada,
China, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, France,
Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Russia, Republic of Korea, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA.
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