The melting of sea ice in the Arctic is opening up possibilities of exploration. Photo / AP
By Nick Whigham
The polar regions are the closest thing left to virgin territory in the modern world.
But with sea ice melting at a rapid rate due to global warming, the Arctic Sea - and its abundance of valuable minerals and natural resources - is becoming more accessible each year.
The Arctic, including the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, is among the last regions on earth to remain largely unexplored. But as new passages open up, the changing conditions in the Arctic are spurring talk of a gold rush for the region's resources, control of the prized shipping routes, and business opportunities in tourism and fishing.
Russia has steadily been increasing its military presence in recent years while China has found roundabout ways to exert influence in the region.
It's a situation that has led conservationists, industry experts and government officials to raise concerns of increasing geopolitical tension developing in the region. The head of the US Coast Guard even compared the situation to the ongoing dispute over territorial claims of islands in the South China Sea.
This month a Russian tanker travelled through a northern route in the Arctic without an icebreaker escort for the very first time. As new oceans and shipping routes open, it also opens the door for the potential of more competing territorial claims in the region, experts fear.
The Arctic stretches from the North Pole to roughly the 66th parallel north, an area of about 20 million square kilometres of freezing seas and tree-less lands.
Unlike Antarctica, most of the Arctic is under national jurisdiction with countries like Canada, Norway, Denmark, the US and Russia which border the Arctic all laying claim to certain parts.
In 2008 the Arctic five committed themselves to the existing legal framework of the Arctic and the orderly settlement of possible overlapping claims.
But with the immense value of the region, no one is taking anything for granted.
The US Geological Survey carried out in 2008 estimated there is 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas and 16 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil waiting to be found inside the Arctic Circle. Even if only a fraction of these fossil fuels are tapped, they could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Coal, diamonds, uranium, phosphate, nickel, platinum and other precious minerals also slumber beneath the icy surface of the Arctic, according to Morten Smelror, director of the Geological Survey of Norway.
"The Arctic is certainly among the last frontiers with respect to undiscovered mineral resources, along with the deep oceans," he told the Associated Press.
In April, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse Obama-era restrictions on oil drilling in the Arctic - signalling his government's intention to begin exploiting the resource-rich area.
"As I look at what is playing out in the Arctic, it looks eerily familiar to what we're seeing in the East and South China Sea," Admiral Paul Zukunft, the current Commandant of the US Coast Guard said this month.
In a speech at the Centre for Strategic & International Studies he urged the US Government to fund new ice breakers in a bid to counteract the presence of China's new Arctic survey ship, the Snow Dragon.
If the US fails to fund the ships, he said, "what you really have is nothing more than a paper dragon to counter a Snow Dragon".
He also warned that Chinese ships were periodically veering into US waters.
"The Snow Dragon ... is on her way up to the Arctic from China," he said. "And they routinely stop and do research in our extended continental shelf. They've established a pattern."
However compared to the South China Sea, the Arctic remains inhospitable, very difficult to exploit, and far removed from the world's great hubs of economic activity.
Speaking to Breaking Defense, retired Navy strategist Bryan Clark, who is now with the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments refuted the comparison made by the US Coast Guard Commandant.
"Today, there are some competing claims, but ... it's an orderly process and no one is building islands, drilling in someone else's potential EEZ [Exclusive Economic Zone], or harassing each other's vessels," he said.
"Unlike the South China Sea, the Arctic will not be a transit area for 30-40 per cent of world trade, will not be adjacent to the homes of more than one billion people, and not subject to multiple overlapping and unresolvable claims."
Once of relatively little interest to the Asian giant, China has begun to formulate a regional strategy for the Arctic in the past decade, including strategic research partnerships with Iceland, in a mission to get a piece of the action.
In the past other world powers have also viewed the country's growing ambition in the Arctic with unease. However, that seemed to shift in 2013 when the Arctic Council agreed to expand in order to include six nations, including China, as observer states.
The core members of the council are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, the United States and Iceland who all have territorial claims in the region.
"We all know China is very interested in the Arctic," Dr Nengye Liu from the University of New England's School of Law told news.com.au in April.
The relationship with Iceland is more about a move from "symbolic participation to real participation", he said. Most importantly, "China wants to ensure it doesn't get left behind".
Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark, has staked its claim to the Lomonosov Ridge - a massive underwater feature jutting hundreds of kilometres beneath the Arctic Sea that would greatly extend Greenland's sea bed continental shelf for possible use in future undersea mining.
Russia, however, contests the claim. It is just one of several disputes before the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Moscow boldly underlined its claim to a vast part of the Arctic Ocean floor 10 years ago by planting an underwater flag at the North Pole. Russia has also been expanding infrastructure along its northern coast, partly to exploit reserves of natural gas in the region.
Canada, meanwhile, contends that the waters of the Arctic archipelago are its internal waters. To support its claim, Canada has been stepping up its activities in the region, including creating a new Arctic research centre and developing autonomous submarines to improve underwater charts.
In the past few years a newly aggressive Kremlin has been building a swath of new (and reactivating many old) military bases along its Arctic frontier, something that has not gone unnoticed by the Pentagon.
The Polish Institute of International Affairs has previously warned that Moscow is setting up a naval infantry brigade, an air defence division, and a coastal missile system, in outlying archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean. The military bases have become a hotbed of Russian military activity in recent years.
In general, the United States is taking a back seat, for now.
Despite competing territorial claims, Arctic nations are co-operating well with each other but challenges remain.
As the polar ice cap continues to melt, the world is witnessing a fundamental change in the environment and anyone able to exert influence over such a strong commercial area will be in the box-seat when it comes to world affairs.
- With AP
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