SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China will build a “Polar Silk Road” and actively participate in the development of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, it said in its new five-year plan for 2021-2025 released on Friday.
The plan said China would “participate in pragmatic cooperation in the North Pole” and “increase its capacity to participate in the protection and use of the South Pole.”
China has looked at profitable mineral resources as well as potential new shipping routes in the Arctic as ice caps recede as temperatures rise.
In 2018, it launched a white paper highlighting its plans to create new transport routes linking Asia and Europe through the north-eastern, north-western and central passages of the Arctic, raising concerns about the region’s fragile environment.
Late last year, China also announced plans to launch a new satellite to track shipping routes and monitor Arctic sea ice changes. Plans to launch the satellite in 2022.
Reporting by David Stanway; Edited by Shri Navaratnam