On top of the globe – Norway, the Arctic and geopolitics

Excerpt from the lecture, as delivered (with some slides)

Introduction

Mr. President, dear friends,

I would like to say that I am back at Fudan – after 29 years. And, if you allow me, just one moment. – Er det bra å være norsk på Fudan? (Ja!) Hvor mange norske er dere? Kan dere ta hendene i været? – This is a Norse code; I'm just speaking to my Norwegian crowd.

It is a great pleasure to be here, close to summing up my three days visit to China. Yesterday, Mr. President, I saw the Prime Minister of China, I saw the Minister of Trade, and the day before yesterday, I had a good meeting with the President of China.

And today, we have witnessed a major event when a Norwegian shipping company received the world's largest car carrier being built at a Chinese shipyard. Equipped with Norwegian technology, Ambassador, underlining really what we have tried to achieve at this visit: More cooperation and more exchanges between Norway and China.

And you are right, Ambassador, I have been here before (slide: photo from 1995). This is a woman most Norwegians know well, former Prime Minister Gro H. Brundtland. You can see me here – in the background. The truth of the matter is, that that fall China hosted, in September (1995), the Women's Conference of the United Nations. We were in China, in Beijing, to accompany Dr. Brundtland, who was the leading voice at the world stage on women's rights, education, reproductive rights, and so forth.

During that visit, I made a trip down to Shanghai and to Fudan to prepare for the visit, which came two months later. And we were very happy in November 1995 to open this important Norwegian engagement of education – the Nordic Centre. – And BI (the Norwegian Business School) was also involved. Since then, the activities have been growing. I think that this engagement with BI must have been one of the first of its kind that your famous university made.

Geography matters

I’ll take the opportunity now, being with Chinese friends, to talk about my country. And I thought I would speak about something which is also a theme at the university, namely speak about geography. And that geography matters. As a politician, as an academic, as a student, and as a business representative, you know you cannot ‘choose’ your geography. It is a given fact.

Most countries put themselves in the middle when they make maps. No surprise, this is not my map, this is your map (slide: a typical Chinese map of the world). You see the Middle Kingdom here, China in the middle; it is impressive. And you can spot, up there, at the arrow, on the very western part of the Euro-Asian continent, we used to call it ‘a little nail at the end of the finger’ – it is Norway. However, when I am in China, Mr. President, I often say ‘it's good to be here – because together, we represent one fifth of the world population. Take China and Norway together, we are, you know, many people!’

One thing about Norway is that we have the world's second longest coastline, after Canada. Norway is many islands, a long coast, and we have a presence in the Arctic and also in the Antarctica. So, this is another way of seeing the world (slide: map of Norway and Europe). Your ambassador to Norway knows well, this is Norway, Europe, and this is how we get it.

When I was a student in France – I had my university studies in Paris – when the French watched the weather report on TV, the weather report cut the map of Europe at the 60th parallel. Then, you get the south of Finland, Sweden, the south of Norway, and around the globe. And my reflection at that time was that you don't really get all of Norway by the 60th parallel. Norwegians know – you would then get only Helsinki in Finland, Stockholm in Sweden, Oslo and Bergen in Norway, and then around.

The Arctic

So, what I would like to do, talking to you now, is lifting your perspective up north, to the Arctic (slide: map of the globe, seen from the North Pole, and a Chinese version of the same perspective). The Arctic is interesting for so many reasons. One reason why the Arctic is coming to us, is that this area of the world is changing.

When I became foreign minister of Norway in 2005, predictions were that by the end of this century, there would be ice-free sailing routes between Europe and Asia. Now we know, in 2024, that this route is already ice-free parts of the year.

This is the way you here in China make that map. It is a pretty accurate map, because here you also map the coastal states of the Arctic. Some people say that the Arctic is in a way what historians or geographers or legal experts once called ‘Terra Nullius’, that nobody governs the Arctic. But this is not true, because Iceland, Norway, Russia, Canada, and Denmark with Greenland, are coastal states in the Arctic. We have the rights and responsibilities as coastal states.

Today, you can – during parts of the year – sail along the Norwegian coast and then continue along the long Russian coast, and then go all the way to Asia. One strategic challenge for Russia is that Russia does not have what you have, a long coast in the south. The coastline Russia has is this coastline, the major coastline of the Arctic. So, with sailing opportunities and everything around the Arctic opening up, this may become an important region, also for China. As you know, Chinese researchers are welcome to do research here, at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard; this is the northernmost part of Norway, in the Arctic.

Norway and Russia

And this is what I also would like to talk about. Here you see the map again (slide: map of the Artic and the Barents Sea, Norway and Russia); this is the very northernmost part of Norway. I show this to you because I think it is of relevance. Norway is Russia's neighbor. We have 200 kilometers of land border, as you can see here. We also share a vast area in the ocean. Norway and Russia had overlapping claims; an area between our countries, 170 000 square kilometers that were disputed; Russia made claims and we made claims.

For 40 years, Norway and the Soviet Union and then Russia negotiated. Because the Law of the Sea tells the coastal states that when you have that situation, you have to negotiate an agreement. As you can see, we have 200 nautical miles of economic zones. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to map our continental shelf. If the continental shelf extends beyond 200 nautical miles, it's your right to map it and it belongs to the coastal states.

So, after 40 years, and on my watch as foreign minister, in 2010, we were able to agree with Russia on the limitation line. This was a disputed area. And the agreement we negotiated was according to the latest principles of international law. The 170 000 square kilometers were divided in two, equally 50/50. And the line which is drawn here is according to the latest principles of equidistance of geography on both sides.

In 2010, I sat down after many, many rounds of negotiations with Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia. And the whole thing was witnessed by President Medvedev and Prime Minister Stoltenberg. And so, we agreed on that border.

I am glad that we don't have overlapping claims and a disputed border now. This was at a time when we made great progress in developing a good neighboring relationship with Russia in the north.

One of the major concerns for my country today is that our neighbor Russia is engaged in a full-fledged, war of invasion of another neighbor in Europe, namely Ukraine. I will come back to that.

Now, this is Norway's geography. This is what we have to deal with. Here is the land border. Here is the major nuclear deterrent arsenal of Russia's defense forces. It has always been in Norway's interest to keep this geography balanced and calm. We like to say ‘high north, low tension’. We want to have a predictable and good cooperation with Russia. Norway has been at peace with Russia for a thousand years. And we want to keep it that way.

This is the extended picture of how Norwegian maritime zones apply (slide: Norway, North Sea, Barents Sea, maritime zones). I say this to you, Mr. President, and the audience, because I think that here, in the South China Sea and in your area, there are many issues being discussed among the coastal states about where borders should go.

In Norway's area, all of these lines have now been drawn, not as ‘dashed lines’; they are complete lines. We have the border in the north with Russia. We have our economic zone. And we have, of course, settled all overlapping issues with our good neighbors, United Kingdom, Denmark, and Iceland.

Norway – a small country?

So, these are Norway’s maritime boundaries. Then, you may ask, I made a joke about it; ‘together we represent one fifth of the world population!’, but I’ll admit, in terms of population, we are just 5,5 million. I learned that there are 13 cities in China bigger than Norway. So, I will not continue on that issue.

But the question is; is Norway a small or a big country? I think, as a Prime Minister, you have to say; it depends on what you ask about. 5,5 million – we are among the small.

Now, if you take our geography on land, we are, you know, in the upper half of the league of nations. But if you take Norway's land and sea and seabed, we are the 17th biggest. And if you take the coastline, we are the second, after Canada.

We are the world's third largest exporter of natural gas, the world's second largest exporter of seafood. And we have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. So, in that sense, we are not small.

Again, geography determines your resources, your location, and your opportunity to be a player in the world according to your opportunities.

See, here again, you see the bigger picture of Europe, as we see it (slide: map of Norway, Europe). When Russia’s war in Ukraine came, in February 2022, this continent came into an immediate crisis. – Because there was also a rupture in access to gas, which is a driving energy for European industry. Norway today provides one third of Europe's gas and one third of the United Kingdom's gas. When the war started, we were able to increase our gas export by almost 10 %, and that helped Europe through that winter.

Green shift

My country is now going through a major transition in terms of energy, partly because of climate change. We need to go from fossil to renewable.

Here you see, at Svalbard, which I mentioned you – the picture, the ice is melting (slide: two photos). This is a glacier in 1937, and a picture from the same angle in 2012.

So, you see, as in the Himalayas, as you see in the Alps, ice is melting, reminding us that we have to find a very organized and speedy transition of technologies and energy.

The ship we saw this morning, Ambassador, can run on ammonia, and it will probably be leading the way among the world shipping of new energy sources, cutting emissions and securing green transition. – Precisely what President Xi and I agreed, and the agreement I signed with the Prime Minister in Beijing yesterday; it is about organized cooperation between Norway and China on green transition.

Here you see the possibilities of sea routes; the northern sea route, north going the eastern way and the northwest passage, a bit more complicated there on the west (slide: simplified map, the Arctic and sea routes). You can see the blue line is much shorter than the red line. You can cut sailing time from Rotterdam in Holland to Japan by 40 % if you sail that way. It's a pretty rough way.

It's a bad sign of international relations now that as a consequence of the war going on in Europe, we have too little contact, too little cooperation doing their research on the highest northern latitudes. 

***

[For the rest of the lecture, the Prime Minister talked about climate change, the energy transition, carbon capture and storage, international research in the Arctic, other countries’ Arctic strategies, and Norway’s Arctic policy. And then the students asked questions.]