China’s impact on the European Union’s Arctic policy: critical junctures, crossovers, and geographic shifts

Abstract

In 2008, the European Commission perceived the European Union (EU) in an excellent position to collaborate with the five Euro-Arctic states and its strategic partners Canada, Russia, and the USA to shape Arctic governance in the fast-changing environment. However, the Arctic coastal states rejected the EU’s multilateral governance approach, while China has emerged as a significant factor in the Arctic. In 2018, China announced the Polar Silk Road to connect East Asia with Europe via Arctic shipping and other connectivity projects. In 2019, the EU started to perceive China as a systemic rival concerning the Belt and Road Initiative. What is the impact of China on the EU’s Arctic policies in the Euro-Arctic environment? What are the prospects for collaboration between the EU and China on joint issues? This paper applies process tracing to analyse China’s and the EU’s Arctic socialization in the early twenty-first century at three critical junctures of Arctic politics. At these junctures, the paper introduces the Arctic situation and the emerging problems, development in agenda setting, the policy processes, and the outcomes of the EU’s and China’s Arctic approaches. It argues that China’s rise as a maritime and Arctic power and its close relations with Russia along the Northern Sea Route shaped the EU’s Arctic policies and their shift towards the Barents sub-Arctic region. Implications are more interaction among both there, as China’s Polar Silk Road might also challenge the EU’s regulatory approach in the Euro-Arctic.