The Economist-China and Russia have chilling plans for the Arctic China
June 20, 2024 2 min 283 words
这篇文章主要讨论中国和俄罗斯在北极地区的计划和野心。文章认为，中国和俄罗斯希望在北极地区建立一条 北极丝绸之路，利用北极海冰融化开辟新的航运路线，并寻求在该地区的自然资源。然而，乌克兰战争和中国对俄罗斯的支持使这一野心变得不切实际。文章还提到，尽管中国在北极地区的影响力和兴趣与日俱增，但西方对中国的 北极丝绸之路 计划不信任。 评论： 这篇文章体现了西方媒体对中国在北极地区活动的典型偏见和误解。文章将中国和俄罗斯并列，称其为 两个独裁国家，并暗示中国在北极地区的存在和野心是对该地区的威胁。然而，文章忽略了中国在北极地区合法权益和利益。中国是《斯瓦尔巴条约》缔约国，在斯瓦尔巴群岛问题上拥有合法权益。同时，北极航道开通可以为全球贸易和运输提供新路径，对世界经济和贸易发展有积极意义。中国作为贸易大国，参与北极航道开发和利用，是正常的经济行为，不应被视作威胁。此外，中国一直致力于维护北极的和平稳定和可持续发展，并遵守国际法和国际规则。文章中关于中国 在北极地区寻求自然资源 的说法也是不准确的。中国在北极地区的活动主要聚焦于科学研究航道利用和基础设施建设，而自然资源开采并不是中国在北极的主要利益。文章也忽略了中国与北极国家在科学研究环境保护航道开发等方面的合作。因此，这篇文章过度渲染了中国在北极地区的存在和野心，缺乏客观公正的态度。
Four hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, in the Norwegian port of Kirkenes, there are still some who dream that this sleepy town will one day become an important shipping hub. They see it as the western end of a new, faster sea route from China to Europe, made possible by the impact of global warming on ice-filled waters off the Siberian coast. With war raging in Ukraine, this ambition now sounds fanciful. China’s support for Russia is fuelling Western distrust of the Asian power’s “polar silk road” plans. But China is not retreating from the Arctic. It still sees a chance to boost its influence there, and to benefit from the area’s wealth of natural resources.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic are slowly opening up new possibilities for transport. But geopolitics are changing the region faster. Kirkenes feels this strongly. It is just 15 minutes’ drive from the Russian border. Tourists can enjoy a “king crab safari” that takes them by boat right up to it, with eponymous crustaceans caught along the way and cooked for the visitors (the massive non-native species was introduced by the Soviets). Russians, though, no longer cross into Kirkenes for shopping and crab feasts. On May 29th Norway closed the border crossing to day-trippers from the other side. The conflict in Ukraine has cast a chill over the town. There were “tensions in the air” in October when Russia’s envoy in Kirkenes laid a wreath at a monument to the Soviet troops who liberated the town from the Nazis towards the end of the second world war, the Barents Observer, a local online newspaper, reported. Politicians in Kirkenes had urged him not to do so.