cover image: The panda bear readies to meet the polar bear : China and Canada's arctic sovereignty challenge

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The panda bear readies to meet the polar bear : China and Canada's arctic sovereignty challenge

8 Mar 2011

Over the past decade or so China has been paying increased attention to the Arctic and Arctic affairs and since 2004, China has had a permanent land-based presence in the Arctic, specifically in the Svalbard Archipelago, or Spitsbergen (well inside the Arctic Ocean in the Barents Sea). [...] China's nightmare scenario for the Arctic is that the A5 (the five Arctic littoral states – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States) would somehow endeavour to regard the Arctic as their backyard and divvy up the region's resources among themselves and to the exclusion of everyone else in the international community, meaning first and foremost China. [...] Openly disputing Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic could be quite problematic for China, given its own disputed claims of sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the Republic of China on Taiwan.4 CHINESE SCHOLARS ON CANADA'S LEGAL AND HISTORICAL CLAIMS TO THE ARCTIC In the absence of a fully developed and official Chinese Arctic policy, there has be [...] They observe that the establishment of the Eastern Arctic Patrol in 1922, the Arctic Islands Preserve in 1926, the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories in 1955, the Distant Early Warning system (DEW) in 1957, Arctic Waters Pollution Act (AWPPA) in 1970, and Northern Canada Vessel Traffic Services (NORDREG) in 1977 all indicate the consolidation of Canadian sovereignty over the region: “T [...] Practices make it clear that the fact of Canada’s control over the territorial waters of the Arctic Archipelago has had, at a firm level, the recognition and tacit approval of the large majority of the principal actors in international law, and that includes the United States.
oceans china environment government politics water international law canada arctic ocean diplomacy exclusive economic zone international relations law treaty northwest passage territorial claims in the arctic hans island canadian arctic sovereignty jurisdiction, territorial exclusive economic zones arctic sovereignty eez continental shelves svalbard treaty sovereignty in the arctic

Authors

Wright, David Curtis

Pages
17
Published in
Canada

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