Another Arctic island is caught in geopolitical crosshairs

President Donald Trump may be ramping up his rhetoric against Greenland, but meanwhile, 1,200 miles away, Svalbard is facing similar pressures from other countries. The remote territory is owned by Norway but is subject to an increasing presence from both China and Russia, meaning Svalbard could end up playing an outsized role in global affairs.

What is happening in Svalbard?

Despite being a Norwegian territory, a 1920 treaty allows people from 49 nations to live and work on Svalbard without a visa, largely for scientific research. The island has since “become the planet’s leading hub of Arctic science, and a rare site of international cooperation,” but this also collides with “increasingly fractured international relations and countries’ quest for influence in the fast-warming Arctic,” said CNN.

Both China and Russia have been working in Svalbard as a result of the treaty, and have set up research stations that “provide a gateway to Arctic influence,” said CNN. Svalbard has become a “pawn on Russia’s chessboard” due to its abundant natural resources, said France24. Russia also hopes that controlling more of Svalbard will allow it to dominate the nearby Bear Gap, one of the “key maritime routes through which Russian naval vessels and submarines can move from their Arctic bases into the North Atlantic,” said Al Jazeera.

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China’s hold on Svalbard is not as deep as Russia’s, but it still maintains a presence. In the nation’s 2018 strategy outline for the Arctic, China “called itself a ‘near-Arctic state’ and repeatedly referred to Svalbard,” said CNN. The country “also has plans for a ‘polar silk road,’ an infrastructure and shipping corridor across the top of the world.” China also has several research stations set up in Svalbard, including a major testing station on Spitsbergen, Svalbard’s only permanently populated area.

What’s next for Svalbard?

Some are worried that Svalbard’s use by other countries will embolden authoritarianism, as Russia and China will “likely work towards common ends in the development of future Arctic governance,” said The Arctic Institute. Norway’s response “may determine if Svalbard maintains its status as an international research hub or becomes defined by its importance in global trade and military security.” Norway also has its own plan to “mine a huge stretch of Arctic seabed around Svalbard and beyond for critical minerals.”

When it comes to war, the 1920 treaty “prohibits the construction of military bases and fortifications” on Svalbard. However, the article in the treaty which prohibits this is only one sentence, and says Svalbard cannot be “used for ‘warlike purposes’ — leaving much room for interpretation,” said The Arctic Institute. Russia has recently been using Svalbard as a “gray zone” for military testing, and the “utilization of these methods are becoming more concentrated on Svalbard as the Arctic Circle captures evermore geopolitical attention.”

Norway seems to be pushing back against Chinese and Russian provocation. In 2022, the government “changed voting rules to prevent non-Norwegians from voting” in Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard, said CNN. And some of the pushback has also been symbolic: This year, a pair of granite Chinese lions were removed from the research station on Spitsbergen. “There is no Chinese research station on Svalbard,” Eivind Vad Petersson, state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CNN. “There’s a Norwegian research station with Chinese tenants. That’s a distinction with a difference.”