ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Xi Jinping’s national strategy of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation as a framework for exploring the possible utilities of China’s engagement with the Arctic. It focuses on three dimensions of this national strategy. First, it considers the CCP’s efforts to restructure the Chinese economy towards domestically driven consumption based on innovation, high-end manufacturing, and science and technological self-reliance. Second, the chapter outlines Chinese military modernisation, the development of the Comprehensive National Security Outlook, and the strategy of military-civil fusion implemented across the Party-state system. Third, the chapter presents the main ideas and concepts in Chinese foreign policy under Xi, including, for example, the notion of establishing a Community of Shared Future for Mankind. The chapter further highlights Chinese interests in the strategic new frontiers - the deep seas, cyberspace, outer space, and the polar regions – as well as the myriad of bureaucratic actors that exist within the Party-state system to advance Chinese interests in these new frontiers and in the Arctic in particular.
