"China has clearly signaled that it has a strong interest..." Topic

… in the Arctic region.

"If you pay attention, Chinese foreign policy rarely surprises. Of course there is the odd moment when Beijing catches the world unaware: for example, its declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea in late 2013. Generally speaking, however, the Chinese telegraph their long-term strategic intentions through their smaller tactical maneuvers. It is just that the rest of the world sometimes misses the signals or doesn't know what to do with the information. Such is the case with China's emerging play in the Arctic.

Over the past several years, China has begun to stake out its claim to the Arctic. No part of China actually touches the Arctic, but as a recent International Institute for Strategic Studies commentary points out, Chinese scholars routinely describe their country as a "near-Arctic" state, and Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo has argued that the "Arctic belongs to all the people around the world, as no nation has sovereignty over it… China must play an indispensable role in Arctic exploration as we have one-fifth of the world's population." This is a signal of Chinese intent.

There are a number of reasons for China's interest in the region, but four stand out in particular. First, of course, the region is rich in resources: oil and gas, fish, and minerals among them. According to one estimate, the region holds one-third of the world's natural gas reserves, and resource-hungry China has recognized the region's potential. China is in talks with Denmark to take stakes in a copper mine in Greenland; China National Offshore Oil Corporation has partnered with Iceland's Eykon Energy for oil exploration; and China's Sichuan Xinye Mining Investment Company will be working with London Mining to exploit the country's iron ore reserves. Uranium and rare earths are additional potential targets for Chinese investment; Greenland has enormous reserves of both, including the capacity to meet 25 percent of world demand for rare earths…"

Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

"China must play an indispensable role in Arctic exploration as we have one-fifth of the world's population."

This new policy is in conflict with Chinese restriction of rare earth metals exports, which was ruled illegal by the WTO recently. If China is saying that countries have a right to access resources, based upon their population, then every country would have a right to a quota of necessary Chinese raw materials.

They also have a lot of fast food restaurants all over the world. Does it count?

I thought Russia claimed a lot of the artic fairly recently. I don't think China will have much luck convincing them.

This is not going to end well. Welcome to next war.

Time to dig out my old SPI 'War in the Ice' game I think (even though technically that's about Antarctica the subject line fits lol).