HMM: China’s Polar Strategy: An Emerging Gray Zone?

While Chinese moves to gain influence and counter American dominance in the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean have drawn widespread attention, less attention has been paid to Beijing’s polar strategy. According to the Wilson Center’s Anne-Marie Brady, China seeks to become a “polar great power,” exploiting the polar regions along its pathway to reshaping the global balance of power. By 2050, U.S. strategists may confront a radically different situation, with the Arctic ice-free (during summer) and Antarctica potentially the site of great power contestation — and China the dominant power in both regions. Such an outcome would mark a remarkable reversal of the historical polar status quo, characterized by U.S.-Russia balance of power.

Beijing pursues its polar strategy across multiple domains: political, economic, scientific, and military. In 2013, China was granted observer status at the Arctic Council, the highest-level intergovernmental forum in the region. Earlier this year, China finally issued a Arctic white paper, and in January, President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative was formally expanded to include the Arctic via a “Polar Silk Road.”

At the tactical level, Beijing is expanding its presence and reach into the harsh polar regions — it recently opened bidding for a nuclear-powered icebreaker, which would represent a remarkable step forward in its development of polar capabilities. Although described as advancing Chinese polar research capabilities, this platform is widely perceived as laying the groundwork for Chinese nuclear aircraft carriers.

Not just carriers, but a potential railgun ship.