Chinese Research on the Arctic (Historical Aspect)

China's commitment to Arctic exploration began in 1925, when the country joined the Svalbard Treaty. China's participation in Arctic exploration was defined by the second and third articles of the treaty, which allowed the country to conduct scientific activities in the adjacent waters of Svalbard. The first New China investigations began from the 1950s, the first scientific projects to explore the Arctic from the 1980s. At that time, the “National Committee of the People's Republic of China for Expeditions to the Arctic” and the “Institute of Polar Research” were created in Shanghai. The reforms and the advanced stance proclaimed by Deng Xiaoping established a new era in China's scientific research of northern Asia. Since the 1990s, the first Chinese scientific programs have been developed with the foreign partners’participation. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and its subordinate scientific institutions are actively involved in scientific activities: the Institute of Aerophysics, the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources, the Institute of Oceanology, etc. An important event for the development of scientific research in the Arctic was the entry of China in 2013 into the Arctic Council as an observer. By 2018, China has conducted nine Arctic expeditions, their purpose was to study the ice melting and its consequences for the world's climate system, as well as the impact of the Arctic climate on China. The presence of plastic waste in the Arctic was monitored. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the PRC has considered the Arctic as the most important geopolitical and geostrategic region for its further logistical and economic development.