Arctic policy of the North East Asian countries

While the significance of the Arctic is increasing in the modern world, the international community is facing some challenging tasks, which nowadays determine the essence and main areas of cooperation between the Arctic States and other interested actors in the region. The most important among them lies in determining basic characteristics of the multilateral governance of the Arctic and in improving mechanisms and procedures that already exist within the Arctic Council and other regional institutions and are intended to ensure its effective implementation. It is impossible to complete those tasks without determining the role and significance of non-Arctic States in shaping and implementing the Arctic agenda, the importance of which goes far beyond that region. Of utmost interest in that regard are the countries of North East Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), which in 2013 gained observer status in the Arctic Council as a result of which it now wields considerable influence over the Arctic Council. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to determine prerequisites for the formation, analysis of the current state and of the future development of the Arctic policy of China, Japan and South Korea as well as for the study of the possibility of their cooperation in that direction. Moreover, the paper provides a description of current opportunities of non-Arctic States to participate in institutional and rule-making mechanisms of the Arctic governance and analyses the impact that those countries have on increasing the efficiency of that process.