Commercial, strategic, and scientific motivations drive China’s growing interests in the Arctic. Russia, an Arctic power, has simultaneously been a reluctant partner and competitor to China in the region. However, with the war in Ukraine and Russia’s increasing dependence on China as its primary strategic and diplomatic partner and its main economic lifeline, China’s leverage over Russia is likely to increase in the region.

The China-Russia Program at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center of China Analysis (CCA) is convening a panel to discuss the evolving dynamics of cooperation and competition between China and Russia in the Arctic. This event will feature leading academics from Norway and the United States to assess China’s engagement in the Arctic, including its ongoing collaboration with Russia, and explore its broader implications for Norway, Europe and the United States. 

The panel features Jo Inge Bekkevold, Senior China Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies/Norwegian Defence University College; Katarzyna Zysk, Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies; and Elizabeth Wishnick, Senior Research Scientist in the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at the Center for Naval Analyses and Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. The discussion will be moderated by Lyle J. Morris, CCA Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security. Jing Qian, CCA Co-Founder and Managing Director, will give introductory remarks.

The event is a collaboration between CCA and the Norwegian Consulate General in New York. 

Breakfast will be served from 8 a.m. The program starts at 8:30 a.m. 

Speakers

Jo Inge Bekkevold is a Senior China Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies/Norwegian Defence University College, where he teaches geopolitics. He was the head of the China/Asia program at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies from 2011 to 2018. His research focuses on China’s foreign and security policy, China-Russia relations, China in the Arctic, Asian security issues, and the wider geopolitical ramifications of China’s rise. His publications include  India’s Great Power Politics: Managing China’s Rise, co-edited with S. Kalyanaraman (Routledge, 2021), Sino-Russian relations in the 21st Century, co-edited with Bobo Lo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and China in the Era of Xi Jinping: Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges, co-edited with Robert S. Ross (Georgetown University Press, 2016). He is a frequent contributor to the Foreign Policy, writing on topics related to China and geopolitics. Bekkevold previously spent more than ten years as a career diplomat in the Norwegian Foreign Service, with several postings to China and East Asia.

Katarzyna Zysk is Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS, since 2007) which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) in Oslo, Norway. She has two decades of experience in international security, defense, and strategic studies. Following her 2006 PhD on NATO enlargement to Eastern Europe, she has devoted a special focus to Russian military strategy, doctrines, and warfare; nuclear deterrence; naval strategy; military change; security in the Arctic; and artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies in defense innovation.

At the IFS, Professor Zysk has served as Deputy Director, Head of  theCentre for Security Policy, and Director of Research and was Acting Dean of the Norwegian Defence University College, where she also regularly teaches. She was also visiting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; at the Changing Character of War Centre at the University of Oxford; at Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, and at The Paris Institute of Political Studies. She also serves as Core Group Member of the Russia Transatlantic Forum at the Center for a New American Security; and is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Her published research has appeared widely in peer-reviewed and popular outlets, including the SAIS Review of International Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, RUSI Journal, Politique Etrangère, Jane's Navy International, War on the Rocks, and others, including in books published by Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. She is a frequent commentator in leading international media, including in the New York Times, BBC World Service, Euronews, CNN, NPR, Economist, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, Die Welt, Die Zeit, El Pais, Sydney Morning Herald, Bloomberg, France Culture, Le Figaro, France 24, Politico, in Nordic and Eastern European media, and in others, including contributions to documentary movies (most recently for Discovery Channel and Bloomberg TV).  

Elizabeth Wishnick is Senior Research Scientist in the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at the Center for Naval Analyses and a Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. She was a tenured professor of Political Science at Montclair State University from 2005 to 2024. Dr. Wishnick has dual regional expertise on China and Russia and is an expert on Chinese foreign policy, Sino-Russian relations, Northeast Asian and Central Asian security, and Arctic geopolitics. Her book project, China’s Risk: Energy, Water, Food and Regional Security (Columbia University Press, forthcoming) addresses the security consequences of energy, water and food risks in China for its Eurasian neighbors, a topic she explores in a related policy blog, www.chinasresourcerisks.com, now on Substack as China’s Resource Risks. Dr. Wishnick is a two-time Fulbright Scholar (Global Award for China, Russia, and Kazakhstan 2018-22; and Fulbright Research and Teaching Award for Hong Kong, 2002–03). She received a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, and a BA from Barnard College. She speaks Mandarin, Russian, and French.

Jing Qian (introductory remarks) co-founded the Center for China Analysis (CCA) at the Asia Society Policy Institute alongside the Hon. Dr. Kevin Rudd, to whom he served as a Senior Advisor for almost a decade. As the Managing Director of CCA, Jing leads its strategy, research, and policy work on China, which includes coordination of a series of Track 1.5/2 dialogues. Jing also co-leads the Decoding Chinese Politics and Cure4Cancer International Clinical Trials Collaboration projects.

Jing serves as an Advisory Board Member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum and is a founding member of both the Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition and the AstraZeneca Global Health Equity Advisory Board. Jing is also a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Jing’s own research is focused on China's elite politics and its impact on China's domestic and foreign policy, particularly regarding U.S.-China relations. His analyses have appeared in Bloomberg, CBC, the Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Nature, Nature Medicine, and more.

A graduate of Harvard University, Jing is deeply interested in the liberal arts. He co-founded Project Agora, with H.E. George Papandreou, to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society through the transformative power of a liberal arts education.

Lyle J. Morris (moderator) is Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy and National Security at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis (CCA). Prior to joining CCA, from 2011-2022, Lyle was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, leading projects on China's military modernization and Asia-Pacific security. From 2019 to 2021, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as the country director for China, advising OSD on defense relations between the Department of Defense and the People's Liberation Army and on Indo-Pacific maritime security. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his service. Before joining RAND, Lyle was the 2010–11 Next Generation Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research and a research intern with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Lyle lived and studied in Beijing, China for four years, where he studied Mandarin at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University and later worked at Dentsu Advertising and the China Economist Journal.

Lyle holds an MA in international affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, earning a Certificate in East Asian Studies from Columbia's Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and a BA in international business from Western Washington University.