For more than two decades, a pair of imposing granite lions flanked the entrance to a rust-red building deep inside the Arctic Circle. Not anymore. Last month they disappeared, and their absence tells a story about the increasingly tense geopolitics at the top of the world.
The vanished lions once guarded a research station operated by China in the Ny-Ålesund settlement on Svalbard, an archipelago nestled between mainland Norway and the North Pole. In May, they were removed by the Norwegian state-owned company that operates the settlement; in June it took down a sign on the building that had read “Yellow River Station.”
Norway’s move is being seen by some experts as part of attempts to reinforce its sovereignty over this slice of the Arctic in the face of seismic geopolitical and climate change shifts.
Greenland may dominate Arctic concerns, as President Donald Trump repeatedly tries to claim it for the United States citing the need counter growing influence from Beijing and Moscow, but another potentially explosive tussle is playing out on Svalbard — where China and Russia already have a presence.
And some fear the world isn’t paying enough attention.
