As soon as Magnus Mæland became mayor of a small town on Norway’s northern tip in late 2023, three delegations from China came knocking on his door.
“It’s because they want to be a polar superpower,” he tells me.
China might not instinctively spring to mind when you think about the Arctic – but it’s determined to be a big Arctic player. It’s been vying to buy real estate, get involved in infrastructure projects and hopes to establish a permanent regional presence.
China already describes itself as a “near-Arctic state”, even though its northernmost regional capital Harbin is on roughly the same latitude as Venice, Italy.
