China and India in the ‘Receding’ Arctic

Abstract

In popular, academic and official discourses of climate change, the Circumpolar Arctic—marked by retreating ice, opening sea routes and intense resource geopolitics—has come to embody the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. Both China and India, appropriately termed as ‘planetary powers’ by some, in view of the global ecological impact and fallout of their fast-growing economies, look able and inclined to be involved in the matters of Arctic governance, but not without inviting wideranging speculations about their motives and agendas. Asia’s ‘rise’ (especially of China and India) is likely to impact the discourse and practices of Arctic governance in a profound manner. The geopolitical rhetoric of Arctic ‘exceptionalism’ appears rather untenable in the face of transformational multiscalar change, growing number of stakeholders, uncertainty and risks. The Circumpolar Arctic with its new access, new opportunities as well as new vulnerabilities demands and deserves a firm commitment to a dialogic politics and enlightened multilateral diplomacy to which both India and China can and should make a meaningful contribution through bilateral and multilateral cooperation.