Competition for the Arctic – China’s ice-cold plans

For a brief moment, Sergey Lavrov drops the diplomatic mask. “It has long been perfectly clear to everyone that this is our territory, this is our country,” Russia’s Foreign Minister said last week, referring to the Arctic. “This is our land.” So when Russia took over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council a few days later, it should have been clear not only to the eight council members (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Russia and the United States) that Moscow lays claim to the entire 1.2 million square kilometers of that icy region.