한·중·일의 북극 전략과 협력 거버넌스의 구축 필요성

Abstract

As the environment changes in the Arctic Circle have become intensified due to global warming since 21st century, the Arctic Circle has become the global center of crisis and understanding. It is expected that the thawing of the Arctic will cause ecosystem changes throughout the globe and become a factor of global crisis in the long term. It also creates opportunity factors according to the commercialization of North Pole Route and the resource development in the Arctic. Therefore, it is predicted that the changes in the Arctic Circle will lead to the establishment of arctic politics with coexistence of cooperation and profit. Such arctic dilemma may be displaced with the dynamics of international politics between countries according to the strategic attitudes and response method of countries. Meanwhile, the Arctic Council has been taking the lead in the Arctic agenda. Due to the recent issue of sustainable development, the possibility of change in arctic governance is being detected. It is predicted that the changes in the Arctic Circle will also influence a change of regional order in Northeast Asia. The thawing of the Arctic means the appearance of new logistic corridor on the southern route which passes the previous Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal to Northeast Asian countries. This provides the benefit to resolve the problem to pay high costs for transporting resource, in other words, the payment of Asian premium. In 2013, three countries including Korea, China and Japan are actively participating in the arctic governance since receiving the position of permanent observer on the Arctic Council as well as competitively conducting the construction of icebreaker and sailing of North Pole Route. This purpose of this study is to examine whether three countries including Korea, China and Japan can conclude the cooperative institutionalization in the development process of new route and resources according to the thawing of the Arctic in future or not. For this, the policies of three countries regarding the Arctic are examined and the conditions, possibility and tasks for the establishment of arctic governance in Northeast Asia are searched. In this study, three tasks are presented as conditions for the institutionalization of cooperation between three countries regarding the Arctic as follows: The first task is to share information on the Arctic Circle and utilize icebreaker for research jointly between three countries. The second task is to find and propose cooperative agenda in the global arctic governance jointly and seek the cooperation for establishing regional governance. The third task is to reinforce monitoring legislation process of coastal states in the Arctic and take responses jointly.