Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 22 – As the weather
warms and navigation along the Northern Sea Route again becomes possible,
Russia, China and Japan have taken steps this week which highlight their
intense interest in making use of the Arctic both for trade and to advance
their geopolitical interests.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev this week issued a decree formally establishing a Northern Sea Route
Administration with headquarters in Moscow and not in one of the country’s
northern cities for which some of the latter had openly campaigned recently (barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/03/opening-northern-sea-route-administration-21-03).
The
new administration, with a staff of 15, is to be operational by mid-May,
Russian officials said. It will be in charge of setting up procedures for all
ships passing north of Russia, providing weather and ice data, and coordinating
search and rescue operations and environmental clean ups as necessary.
In other moves involving the Arctic, Russia
took delivery of a new ship designed for Arctic work and put back into service a
nuclear-powered icebreaker that has been plagued by problems each of the last
two years, indications of the urgency Moscow attaches to this region (portnews.ru/news/157135/#news and barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/03/accident-prone-icebreaker-back-northern-sea-route-12-03).
Meanwhile,
China is pressing ahead with its plans to exploit that Arctic route, a path
that its officials hope will ultimately carry a fifth of all Chinese trade with
Europe, carrying manufactured goods to Europe and carrying raw materials back from
Russia, a drive that disturbs some Russians (svpressa.ru/economy/article/65718/ and barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/03/china-starts-commercial-use-northern-sea-route-14-03
According to Andrey Ostrovsky,
deputy director of the Academy of Sciences Institute for the Far East, Russia
has the right established by UN
conventions to set the rules of the use of the Northern Sea Route, something that
he suggested will limit any broader Chinese geopolitical designs.
Aleksandr Panov, who earlier served
as Russian ambassador to Japan, Norway and South Korea, points out, however,
that Russia’s powers in that regard are limited. Moscow has the right to define
insurance requirements and the responsibility to provide rescue operations, and
it can offer its ice breakers to other states.
To a small degree, the former
ambassador told “Svobodnaya pressa,” “China can’t act without Russian
involvement. But,” he stressed, “today, according to the provisions of the convention
on the sea, Russia does not have a monopoly on this route.” And it should not assume that it does.
Instead, Panov suggested, Moscow
should be thinking about improving its position as a transportation link
between Europe and Asia by modernizing the Trans-Siberian and building a second
rail line, given that the Transsib is currently overloaded but is a far better
corridor than the ice-plagued Arctic.
Unfortunately, he said, there doesn’t
seem to be much interest in doing so. “Our ministers say there is no money” for
such projects. In that event, they
should not complain about the steps that China and other countries are taking
to exploit a sea path that many in Russia have long assumed is Russia’s to
command.
And finally, Japan, another country
that doesn’t border the Arctic but that is actively interested in using the Northern
Sea Route, announced the appointment of a special ambassador for Arctic affairs
to represent Japan on the Arctic Council once its application for observer
status is approved (barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/03/japan-appoints-arctic-ambassador-20-03).
A decision on that is expected later
this spring as well as one on the applications of 13 other countries that seek
that status before Sweden transfers the chairmanship of the Arctic Council to
Canada at a ministerial in the northern Swedish city of Kiruna (nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674non-arctic_japan_appoints_an_arctic_ambassador/).
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