Grey Zone Lecture -‘Deceive the Heavens': China and Strategic New Frontiers

As China continues to expand its current strategies around the world, a common theme has been preparation for a less predictable and more volatile international system, described by Xi Jinping as ‘perilous storms’. Beijing has responded to a world of more overt great power competition by crafting a foreign policy which reflects ‘strategic new frontiers’, combining military modernisation with a greater variety of below-threshold operations, including in the economic and cyber / AI realms. Moreover, because of growing divisions between the United States and its Asian and European allies, the Chinese government is now seeing windows of opportunity to advance its international power in regions, including the Arctic, well beyond the country’s periphery. In facing these challenges, there is a need for governments and other institutions to better develop ‘China literacy’ to understand the country’s evolving multifaceted global presence.

This public lecture by Prof Marc Lanteigne (ISV) is organised by the Grey Zone research group at UiT, and the University's Centre for Geopolitics, Peace and Security.