Extract

National narratives have an important role in state-building and creating national identities. They also have a flow-on effect to foreign policy. China’s predominant historical national narrative on Antarctica is one of being initially excluded and having experienced inferior status in Antarctic affairs; tropes that resonate with the wider national narrative on China’s modern history of foreign exploitation and victimisation. The logical response to such a historical narrative is Beijing’s present-day emphasis on the ‘right to speak’ (huayu quan) on Antarctic affairs and its assertion of China’s ‘rights and interests’ (quanyi) in Antarctica. China is rapidly expanding its Antarctic capacity and assessing the opportunities it can derive from increased Antarctic engagement. In the process, as many other leading Antarctic players such as the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and Australia have done (and continue to do); China is now incorporating Antarctica into its meta-narrative on national identity, national interests, and the nation’s global rise as an economic and political power. As a state where the media, culture, education, and historiography are under strict control from the ruling political party, this process is relatively obvious to observe in China compared to societies with a more open political environment. The nation’s expanded Antarctic presence and scientific programme is explained to the Chinese public as being part of China’s long-term efforts to get a share of Antarctic oil and mineral resources, which will help underwrite China’s continued economic development. China is a relatively insecure new great power both in its internal politics and in terms of the external environment it faces. So China has to be both increasingly proactive about defending its interests and ambiguous about what its actual interests are in order to delay open conflict with other potential competitors for as long as possible, hence the government’s careful information management on Antarctic affairs. This chapter explores China’s Antarctic frames and Antarctic information management which help to moderate discussion of Antarctic affairs, as a preface to a narrative history of China’s Antarctic engagement, using these as a lens to understand China’s evolving foreign policy.