China’s Polar Silk Road: Covert Canadian Expansion & Escalating Risk

Many are sounding the alarm that control of critical parts of Western and Northern Canada are being quietly transferred to the People’s Republic of China (CCP) as part of Xi Jinping’s aggressive expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative—one that has an emerging focus on the highly strategic western and arctic regions of Canada under the banner of the Polar Silk Road.

This covert expansion of the Chinese empire threatens to shift the global balance of wealth and power into a frightening new world order. China and the United States have been on a collision course and this expansion just escalates the already soaring risk of an armed conflict—one that could easily escalate into an apocalyptic world war.

It’s time to wake up and get prepared folks… while you still can.

Why the emerging Chinese focus on the Polar Silk Road?

Simply put, it boils down to five driving factors:

• Raw Materials (e.g., minerals, oil and timber)
• Fresh Water
• Global Navigation Routes
• Geo-Political Power
• Strategic Military Advantages

The CCP has already used the BRI to takeover a significant amount of infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand—providing it with increasing control over the South Pacific.

It has also made tremendous inroads in Europe and, now, appears to be setting its sights on Canada.

From a geo-political perspective, both the consequence (and underlying principal goal) is clear:

America—the great enemy of the CCP—is becoming increasingly isolated.

As China ramps up its expansion in the South China Sea, the broader implications on the balance of power between the rising CCP superpower and the declining American superpower.

If China can exert military and commercial (navigational) control of the South Pacific and Arctic regions—while increasingly isolating the United States—it will quickly be in a position to secure its place at the top of the mountain… and potentially eliminate America from the picture once and for all.

To learn more about the soaring Chinese threat, I encourage you to read our articles:

• Russia-China Military Alliance: Global Threat Level Continues to Rise
• China Prepping for Taiwan Invasion: Is War Imminent for United States?
• US-China Tensions Escalate: Preemptive Sino-Russian Nuclear Strike Imminent?

Polar Silk Road: Emerging Daughter of Belt and Road Initiative

J. William Middendorf II (former US Secretary of the Navy during the Ford Administration), notes that “the Trudeau government seems more concerned with pondering the potential economic advantages” of approving deals with China—such as turning over ownership of the Hope Bay property to the People’s Republic of China.

Located in Nunavut, 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle, this gold rich property would not only provide the material-obsessed CCP with mineral rights but would provide a key strategic opportunity to expand the wharf into a major military hub–one capable of accommodating People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) icebreakers, submarines, and surface war ships.

In fact, Middendorf argues that “it could become the northern equivalent of Chinese military and economic development in the disputed islands of the South China Sea.”

The facility has access to tidewater leading to the Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—a critical piece in the Chinese plan for a Polar Silk Road (PSR).

The Polar Silk Road (PSR) is a lesser known component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—one that has become a much bigger focus of China given the ongoing climate change in the region, which has created extensive icecap erosion and increased international navigation and commerce in the Arctic region.

Remember, in 2017, China released a policy document (Vision for Maritime Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative) that identified three specific “blue economic passages” that were deemed essential for future BRI Chinese maritime trade: (1) the Indian Ocean-Mediterranean route, (2) the Oceania-South Pacific route, and (3) the Arctic Ocean.

The following year, the CCP released its China’s Arctic Policy (2018), in which China’s State Council Information Office states:

Global warming in recent years has accelerated the melting of ice and snow in the Arctic region. As economic globalization and regional integration further develops and deepens, the Arctic is gaining global significance for its rising strategic, economic values and those relating to scientific research, environmental protection, sea passages, and natural resources… The Arctic shipping routes comprise the Northeast Passage, Northwest Passage, and the Central Passage. As a result of global warming, the Arctic shipping routes are likely to become important transport routes for international trade… China hopes to work with all parties to build a “Polar Silk Road” through developing [these] Arctic shipping routes… [and] participating in the exploration for and exploitation of oil, gas, mineral and other non-living resources.”

Belt & Road Initiative: The Dirty Little Secret China Doesn’t Want You to Know

The Belt and Road Initiative encompasses China’s steadily increasing global-expansionist development activities—activities that include investing billions of dollars in infrastructure projects around the world, backed by Chinese policy banks (China Development Bank, Eximbank) and by financial mechanisms specifically created by Beijing (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Silk Road Fund).

CBC notes that “China is financing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects—including ports, roads, bridges, railways, power plants, telecommunications networks and much more.”

A major warehouse facility under construction in Western Canada and backed by the CCP as part of its Belt and Road Initiative is an example of the size and scope of Chinese investment in western Canada.

The massive $190 million, 470,000-square-foot complex, dubbed the “World Commodity Trade Center,” is a joint venture between a Chinese state-sponsored company and a local development firm. The facility has four warehouses and two large exhibition halls strategically located in the Campbell Heights industrial zone between Vancouver International Airport and the United States border.

The World Bank estimated that China had invested $575 billion in Belt and Road-related projects by 2019, and investment bank Morgan Stanley predicts that figure could reach or even exceed $1.3 trillion by 2027.

That investment capital has, is, and will be flowing into more than 138 countries that have signed agreements to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative—that’s 138 out of 195!

According to The Green Belt and Road Initiative Center (Beijing), that breaks down to:

• 38 BRI countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
• 34 BRI countries in Europe & Central Asia—including 18 countries of the European Union (EU)
• 25 BRI countries in East Asia & Pacific
• 17 BRI countries in Middle East & North Africa
• 18 BRI countries in Latin America & Caribbean
• 6 BRI countries in South East Asia

I say “more than” because it’s also flowing into “shadow” partner nations like Canada—those who want to publicly appear to be resisting Xi Jinping, while they take the cash and sell out to China on the down low.

This demonstrates the sheer size and scope of the “benevolent” global influence being created within the emerging Chinese empire.

However, there’s a catch… there’s always a catch.

While China argues it is merely attempting to accelerate and enhance development and trade in order to create new markets and opportunities for China and its partners, the reality is that it is about money and, more importantly, control—with the only opportunity being for that of China.

All that invested capital comes with significant strings attached—including exclusive rights to manage the projects both during construction and for years, even decades, after completion.

That means lucrative contracts for Chinese construction firms and, more importantly, full Chinese (CCP) control (“ownership”) of critical infrastructure within the territories of those nations accepting the loans.

Furthermore, it adds tremendous amounts of debt to those countries—leaving them vulnerable to extortion and strong-arm tactics by the Chinese.

For example, Sri Lanka was forced to give China a 99-year lease on its port of Hamantota when it couldn’t pay the bill on its Chinese debt.

This is why critics argue that the real purpose behind the Belt and Road is less about trade and development, and far more about China increasing its sphere of influence and level of global dominance—economically and militarily.

In other words, it’s a win-win situation for China. They earn a massive ROI on the capital, while gaining control of strategic infrastructure around the globe. And, if their “partners” can’t make good on the debt… well, they just exchange some of that debt for even more control. One must admit it’s a diabolically ingenious plan.

But, in a world economy that is increasingly dominated by China… countries (like Canada) must play ball or risk massive economic pain in the future.

In a recent statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Henry Kissinger defined BRI as China’s “quest to shift the world’s center of gravity”—acknowledging Beijing’s ambition to reshape the world order in their favor.

Regarding this voracious ambition, in its 2018 report, Rethinking Security: China and the Age of Strategic Rivalry, even Canada’s own Canadian Security Intelligence Service warned:

The Belt and Road Initiative is the main instrument serving this ambition. It purports to use China’s economic clout and capital export as leverage to shape regional decision-making towards wider acquiescence to its core interests and support for its geostrategic objectives.”

Conclusion

China is rapidly and cunningly expanding its global empire via the Belt and Road Initiative—that now includes a Polar Silk Road. We are watching it unfold before our very eyes… as the sun slowly sets on the once great American empire.

Like proverbial ostriches, many are burying their heads in the sand—ignoring the threat in hopes that it will all just go away.

Unfortunately, appeasement, denial and circumvention will not change the inevitable outcome. Eventually, it will come down to a war—it always does.

In an address to his commanders ahead of the start of the “Lethal Arrow” drill this week, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi warned:

What operations were there between 1956 and 1967? Eleven years without war. And then it came. I’ll tell you what the greatest illusion is. The greatest illusion is that [war] is a long way off… [but] When it breaks out, it almost always breaks out by surprise. If I have one basic message to convey to you with regard to this whole matter, it is to prepare in earnest.”

We would all be wise to heed his sage advice.

War rarely comes when you are expecting it. Rather, it comes when you least expect it… when the experts are downplaying the potential… when the pundits are complacent and filled with hubris… when the world is eagerly proclaiming “peace and security.”

That’s when we need to be at our highest state of readiness. Don’t fall prey to the deceptive illusion—the world is as dangerous a place as it has ever been.

If you haven’t already, we highly encourage you to read our article The Ship IS Sinking… What Are YOU Going to Do as It Goes Under?

For more on the rising China threat, checkout some of our other great articles:

• Russia-China Military Alliance: Global Threat Level Continues to Rise
• China Prepping for Taiwan Invasion: Is War Imminent for United States?
• US-China Tensions Escalate: Preemptive Sino-Russian Nuclear Strike Imminent?