For almost three years I have had the privilege of researching a variety of countries while at Syracuse University. China still ceases to amaze me. This constantly growing nation somehow manages to grow in the international community while the world is coming out of a ‘great recession.’

Out of midterm boredom and sheer curiosity, I thought ‘what the heck’ and decided to take a look into what China is up to. Not to my surprise, China has now set its eye upon the Arctic Circle. The country is currently looking to invest under the table for a possible say-so in Arctic policy. Beijing is growing increasingly eager to join a club of countries that formulate policies regarding the Arctic Circle for two reasons — oil and transit routes. It, however, does not want to make that interest too public and too certain out of fear of Russia slapping on a steep toll, seeing that it currently holds the only transit route in the region.

The Arctic Circle is thought to hold 22 percent of Earth’s remaining supply of untouched oil and gas reserves. These reserves are transitioning to a state of availability due to the melting of the polar ice caps. The sea ice at the North Pole has lost half of its thickness and rapid melting could continue. Signs point to the region being completely devoid of ice between 2013 and 2020. This absence of ice will allow countries to navigate the region and permit oil companies to obtain untouched oil reserves. The only issue that comes to mind is that China is not a part of the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea. The convention recognizes Denmark, Norway, Russia and Canada as countries neighboring the Arctic Ocean, thus entitling them to extend their seabed and stake claim to the region.

China has been an unofficial observer to Arctic Council meetings since 2007. In order to show that it wants a say-so in the region, China has invested a large amount of resources in polar study and has created some of the world’s most advanced Arctic research labs. If the country is able to make its voice heard on Arctic policy, it will have one of the best transit routes you can think of. Traveling through the Arctic could cut China’s traveling time down by 40 percent. Do you know how much money it would save? Too much!

I personally have a problem with this news because we are already robbing Earth of everything it has, so why does China need to commercialize something that has pretty much been left alone? We have enough problems in the world that we don’t need another transit dispute and ‘who controls what’ battle between countries. Oh, and by the way, where is America on this? You would have thought the United States would be No. 1.

To get a policy perspective to rationalize my unsteady assessment, I asked Maria Angelov, a junior policy studies and political science major at Syracuse University, about her thoughts on how the United States and China are handling this situation. She believed that this was ‘a sign of the times … the Chinese are catching up to us.’

‘We keep hearing things about how China is excelling in the international community, but it’s like we’re almost just sitting back and watching things take place,’ Angelov said.

All we can do now is just sit and watch. China isn’t doing anything illegal, but every country steps into those gray areas at least once. We’ll just have to wait and see.

John Sumpter is a junior international relations and Middle Eastern studies major. His column appears weekly, and he can be reached at jfsumpte@syr.edu.

Published on March 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm