“China Wants to Invest in the Arctic. Why Doesn’t Canada?”, The Walrus

THE VAST mineral deposits of zinc and copper near Izok Lake, in the Northwest Territories, lay glittering but ultimately untouchable until August 2019, when trans­port minister Marc Garneau pledged $21.5 million in federal funding toward the first phase of development for the Grays Bay Road and Port Project, a trans­portation network designed to cash in on the opening of the Arctic. This money would add to the $40 million allocated to building a series of roads across the Nunavut–Northwest Territories border, which will help connect Izok Lake to the deepwater port at Nunavut’s Grays Bay, located along the increasingly ice­-free Northwest Passage sea route that leads to Asia.

In 2011, MMG Limited, a multinational mining corporation, expressed interest in building a road to open up some of the Arctic’s remote but lucrative min­eral reserves. Standing to benefit most from this would be the corporation’s pri­mary shareholder: the Chinese govern­ment. The tremendous cost of the road and port, however, ultimately made the project economically unviable for MMG, which halted further development, in 2013, in hopes that Canada would pick up the shovel. “On behalf of MMG, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Canadian government for their support and funding,” CEO Geoffrey Gao said in a press release following Garneau’s pledge. “Road and port access is the key to unlocking the Izok Corridor.”

For Stanley Anablak, president of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, an organ­ization that represents Inuit in western Nunavut, it mattered not whether in­vestment came from Canada or from abroad. Investment had been held back largely by limited backbone infra­structure in the territories. More roads and ports, better broadband networks and transmission lines, and even rail­ways, Anablak notes, could change that. “Without this project, we will continue to be dependent on the [few] mines that can operate completely independent of regional infrastructure,” he wrote in an email. “We want to be more self­ sufficient. We need to be in charge of our own destiny.”

With the entire transportation net­work project bearing a $1.6 billion price tag, the $61.5 million in Can­adian funding seemed a drop in the bucket, but it is what that money rep­resents that concerns Michael Byers, a Canada Research Chair in global pol­itics and international law at the Uni­versity of British Columbia who has monitored the development for years. “I don’t see a need for us to be subsid­izing Chinese investments in the Can­adian Arctic,” he says. He believes economic benefits to Inuit commun­ities are oversold. “[The road] has one purpose, which is to support mineral development in the region . . . and the primary commercial beneficiary will be a Chinese company.”

There is growing concern that China’s influence in the North could threaten Canada’s autonomy in the region and put politicians in uncomfortable situa­tions as they weigh national regulations with foreign-­policy strategies. Canada has spent decades ignoring its Arctic potential, and as a result, the region’s economy lags far behind that of most other northern regions around the world. Evidently, the Canadian Arctic has not proved such a blind spot for China.

CHINA’S GROWING INTEREST in the Canadian Arctic, one of the least defended regions on earth, has been a calculated move. In 2013, de­spite not being one of the eight Arctic nations, China gained official observer status at the Arctic Council, an intergov­ernmental forum, and later declared it­self a “near­-Arctic state”—a phrase that seems to ignore the 5,000 kilometres between its northern­most point and the Arc­tic Circle. The Chinese government has focused largely on the Russian and European Arctic, but in its scramble for resources and transportation domin­ation, that is beginning to change. In Greenland, for example, as the ice sheet recedes, precious metals, gemstones, rare earth elements, and uranium are suddenly be­coming accessible. China now controls over 90 percent of the global trade of rare earth minerals, according to a re­port from the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, and a Chinese company is forging ahead with a mine at the world’s second-­largest rare earth element deposit, in Greenland. “A big reason the Canadian North trails the Russian Arc­tic, and even Greenland, in resource ex­traction and development is that it’s just so hard to get in there, build things, and get the product out to market,” explains Adam Lajeunesse, a researcher in Can­adian Arctic marine­-security policy at St. Francis Xavier University.

Forty percent of Canada lies in the Arctic—an area with abundant deposits of oil, gas, and minerals. And Chinese companies have already helped fi­nance the Nunavik nickel mine and Lac Otelnuk iron project in the sub­-Arctic of northern Quebec. Lajeunesse says that Chinese investment in the Arctic is something he’s been anticipating. And the country’s advance toward the Arctic Circle will likely be aided by warming temperatures. In 2017, the icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, made its first voyage through the Northwest Passage, which Canada recognizes as internal waters. The United States has long contested Canada’s sovereignty here, but as Lajeunesse explains, “China’s position on the Northwest Passage is purposefully ambiguous.” And, while the Chinese government has said it respects Canadian sovereignty in the region, it plans to freely use the transit passages. Arguing against Canadian sovereignty, Lajeunesse says, would make operating in the Can­adian North more difficult; this way, China reserves the right to challenge Can­ada’s claim during future diplomatic negotiations. Given the dangers of oper­ating in undercharted waters, foreign nations must rely on the support of the Canadian Coast Guard to ensure safe shipping.Sea ice, storms, and icebergs could all spell disaster.

China is already a key supporter of the Northern Sea Route, the once frozen shipping lane opening up above Russia that’s expected to shave as much as two weeks off transit times between Europe and Asia. And, at the mouth of the Yangtze River in Shanghai’s Jiang­nan Shipyard, Chinese and Finnish archi­tects recently finished construction on the nation’s second heavy icebreaker. Closing bids for a third, China will soon have more heavy icebreakers than most of the actual Arctic nations. In 2018, the country released its first Arctic policy paper, laying out plans for a “Polar Silk Road”—an Arctic extension of its in­ famous transportation megaproject, the Belt and Road Initiative, which cur­rently spans more than 130 countries. The paper focused on China’s altruistic aims: the Chinese government hoped to understand the Arctic through research, protect it against climate change, and promote peace. But the paper also stated plans to extract resources and participate in the Arctic’s governance. Where does that leave Canada, the nation with the second-­largest share of the Arctic, behind Russia?

The Canadian government has been slow to wake up to China’s Arctic ambi­tions. “We’ve not been paying attention, both defensively and opportunistically, to the Arctic,” says Irvin Studin, presi­dent of the Institute for 21st Century Questions. Rather, we’ve focused solely on relations with our neighbouring global powerhouse. It wasn’t until April 2019 that the House of Commons updated its report on Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, which recommended that the country “should engage with the Government of China to understand their growing inter­est in the Arctic.” Engaging with China, however, has proved difficult. With the 2018 arrest and attempted extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, whatever goodwill existed between the two countries vanished. Soon afterward, China detained two Canadians, includ­ing a diplomat. (China denies this was retaliation.)