Abstract
In 2013, six years after applying, China was granted “Observer” status in the Arctic Council (Willis and Depledge 2014). Five years later the country released its first official “Arctic Policy” (People’s Republic of China 2018), crystallizing its entrance into the sphere of US politics in a new geographical arena. Crucially, although China and the US have a direct relationship in the Arctic, the scope of their potential activities in the region is bounded by the policies and positions of the other Arctic states, and how each of these states perceive their interests being best served dictates the extent and nature of their interaction with the US and China.
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Notes
- 1.
The Arctic Council comprises eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and US), six Permanent Participants representing the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic, and thirty-eight “Observers,” of whom thirteen are states.
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Hughes, T. (2023). Managing the Sino-American Rivalry in the Arctic. In: Roberts, K., Bano, S. (eds) The Ascendancy of Regional Powers in Contemporary US-China Relations . Global Foreign Policy Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37612-2_14
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