China's market,investment and labor forces could assist

China can play a bigger role in the increasingly ice-free Arctic, using its investment advantages and the size of its markets and labor force, but it is "far from becoming a power player in the Arctic", said the head of the polar strategic research division under the Polar Research Institute of China.

"As a latecomer, China has a lot of homework to do to learn more about the rapidly changing region and then to better serve the country's development," Zhang Xia, who is also deputy chief of the new China-Nordic Arctic Research Center, told China Daily.