The Hudson Institute’s China Center and China Tech Threat recently collaborated on a conference, Dragon in the North: Assessing the Growing Chinese Threat to the Arctic Region, focused on China’s March toward the Arctic and how the region is emerging as a new flashpoint of geopolitical challenge. It featured keynote remarks by Hudson Distinguished Fellow and 70th Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and followed the recent release of the Biden Administration’s Arctic Strategy as well as the State Department’s August announcement of the creation of an Ambassador-at-Large for the Arctic region.
During a panel moderated by China’s Tech Threat’s Dr. Roslyn Layton, former NATO Ambassador and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison along with Liselotte Odegard, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and Professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, shared insights on the tenuous relationship between Russia and China in the region as well as China’s plan to create a “Polar Silk Road” linking China to Europe through the Arctic.
With China’s investment of tens of billions of dollars in energy, infrastructure, and research projects in the region, the panelists raised how these investments provide Beijing with dual-use intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Furthermore, they examined how the integration of Russian and Chinese satellite navigation systems could further strengthen strategic collaboration and refine the use of precision-guided missiles against NATO’s defenses
Hudson Senior Fellow and Director of the China Center Dr. Miles Yu hosted the event which can be viewed in full here.