CHINA-ANTARCTICA: CHINESE VISITORS

The number of Chinese tourists to Antarctica and the Arctic has spiked. Antarctica attracted 5,289 Chinese visitors last year - making up 12 per cent of visitors - overtaking Australians as the second-largest group of travellers there. In the Arctic, Chinese tourists going to the Russian Arctic National Park and the Finnish Lapland have risen as well.

(Comment: In 2014, then Director of the State Oceanic Administration Liu Cigui wrote: "Today, we are already standing at the starting point of a brand-new historical era, of striding towards becoming a polar-region power." China's 13th five-year development plan of 2016-2020 includes a major programme to explore the polar regions. China positions itself as an important stakeholder as a "near-Arctic state" whose climate and environment are affected by changes there.  China wants to take part in the development of Arctic shipping routes, though its White Paper talks of scientific and environmental research and economic activities. It wants to develop a Polar Silk Road to link with its Belt and Road Initiative to build infrastructure along land and sea routes that link China to Africa and Europe. Some analysts feel Beijing is keen on the Polar Silk Road because it not only cuts by about a third the travel time from China to Europe, compared with the route via the South China Sea and Indian Ocean now, but also runs through an area free of pirates.)






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