THE COОPЕRATION BETWEEN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES AND CHINA IN THE ARCTIC REGION

Abstract

In 2014, China announced the new Ў°One Belt, One RoadЎ± initiative, which was focused on cooperation with the rest of Eurasia and development of The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road. In 2017, the project was extended with another Arctic component - the blue economic passage (lanse jingji tongdao) as an important element of the future Chinese economic interests. In the following year, the Asian country released its official White Paper on the Arctic policy. With the growing economic relationship between China and the Nordic countries, the ambitious Arctic projects seem even more achievable than before. China has already shown interest in the Northeast Passage or the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as alternative maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, even with the expensive future investments in new deep-sea ports and shipping hubs, the goods landing in the European Arctic are still far from the hungry markets of the major cities further south. In this regard, the paper focuses on the side projects, which may be not principally significant in the frame of this major initiative, but still have their great importance for the Chinese interests in the Arctic region.