Melting ice cap ‘will give China fast access to Atlantic’
First Sea Lord warns of threat posed by world’s largest naval fleet as ‘high north’ route opens up
THE First Sea Lord has warned that China will exploit new sailing routes to the Atlantic as they open up as a result of melting polar ice caps.
In a speech on board the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, Admiral Tony Radakin said the effects of climate change would create “new maritime trade routes across the top of the world”, halving “the transit time between Europe and Asia”.
Admiral Radakin said: “When China sails its growing navy into the Atlantic, which way will it come – the long route, or the short?” He said the free movement of “nations, their navies, and above all their merchant ships” would be at risk when China started to use these routes, as it would “threaten this concept” of free maritime movement. He said: “The world is getting more competitive, more contested. We will have to play our role in that world. As the high north becomes more open and accessible it’s going to be more contested and competitive as well.”
Jeremy Quin, minister for defence procurement, said climate change was a reality, and added: “There is a real risk it will open up seaways and we should expect those seaways will be used”.
According to a Pentagon report, Beijing has the world’s largest naval fleet with 350 ships and submarines. Defence sources warned this meant its fleet would become more active in the Atlantic, deemed the UK’S “back yard”.
It is understood defence chiefs fear a situation like the Strait of Hormuz, which saw tensions flare in July 2019 after British Royal Marines helped seize an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar after it was suspected of breaking EU sanctions.
In retaliation Iran seized a Britishflagged oil tanker and kept it at anchor for two months after it was accused of f l outing maritime rules. Admiral Radakin also warned that the high north routes “skirt the coast of that resurgent Russia – a Russia that is now more active in the Atlantic, our backyard, than it has been for over 30 years.”
Last month, the Royal Navy demonstrated to the Kremlin that it did not have freedom of the Arctic, by leading a multinational task group of warships and aircraft into the icy corridor.
In the first such operation for 20 years, the navy was joined by US, Danish and Norwegian forces to demonstrate freedom of navigation inside the Arctic Circle. Admiral Radakin said: “We will be looking in the ‘high’ high north, as we do in the Atlantic and elsewhere in the world, to join with our partners.”
He added that while “cyber space” had made the world more transparent, the one place left to hide was “under the sea”. However, 97 per cent of our data travelled on undersea cables and that meant “our adversaries are already threatening these”. He said the Government was “developing new capabilities to protect those cables, standing up to this threat on behalf of everyone”.