The Great Game is heading to the Arctic.
大博弈(Great Game)正在走向北极圈。Just days before Christmas, Denmark has become the first country to lay formal claim over the North Pole. That puts the small Nordic country of 5.6m people on a diplomatic collision course with Russia and Canada which each claim part of the Arctic above where the countries’ current borders end.
距离圣诞节仅几天之际，丹麦成为首个对北极点(North Pole)提出正式主权要求的国家。这个560万人口的北欧小国由此进入与俄罗斯和加拿大发生外交冲突的轨道，后两个国家都对本国现有国界以北的北极圈部分地区提出了主权要求。
“That these countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the determination of their outer limits tells us how important the Arctic has become. The Great Game is moving to the north,” said Rob Huebert, Arctic expert at the University of Calgary.
加拿大卡尔加里大学(University of Calgary)的北极圈问题专家罗布•许贝特(Rob Huebert)表示：“这些国家花了数亿美元资金用于确定北部国界，这告诉我们北极圈已变得多么重要。大博弈正在向北转移。”
Denmark presented a claim at the United Nations on Monday to about 900,000 square kilometres beyond the coast of Greenland, an autonomous territory within Denmark. That follows Canada saying last year that it would submit a claim to the North Pole but first needed to gather more data.
丹麦周一在联合国(UN)对格陵兰岛海岸线以外的约90万平方公里土地提出了主权要求，格陵兰岛是丹麦境内的自治领土。在此之前的去年，加拿大曾表示将在收集更多数据后，对北极点提出主权要求。At stake are the huge, untapped resources of oil, gas and minerals thought to lie under the Arctic. A US government study suggests that as much as 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of its oil could lie in the Arctic.
这些博弈关系到北极圈下据信埋藏的巨大未开采石油、天然气和矿产储量。美国政府的一项研究显示，世界上未被发现的天然气和石油分别有30%和13%可能埋藏在北极圈下。The Arctic has failed to live up to dire warnings before, notably after a submarine planted a Russian flag beneath the pole in 2007, while oil exploration attempts have disappointed.
以往有关北极圈的严峻警告后来不了了之，特别是在2007年，一艘潜水艇将一面俄罗斯国旗插在北极点正下方的海底。与此同时，石油勘探活动的结果迄今令人失望。Beyond that, each country has to submit a claim within 10 years of ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Both Norway and Russia have already done so while Canada has indicated it would. The US has yet to ratify the convention.
除此之外，每个国家都必须在批准《联合国海洋法公约》(UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS)之后的10年内提出主张。挪威和俄罗斯已经这样做了，而加拿大已表示会这样做。美国还未批准该公约。But European diplomats fret that the relatively cordial relations between Arctic states have been strained by Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Moscow’s push to build new military bases in the Arctic. “The Arctic has been the one area where Russia has shown itself to be co-operative but now the warning signs are there that things could get more difficult,” said a former Nordic minister.
但欧洲外交人士担心，俄罗斯吞并克里米亚、以及莫斯科方面谋求在北极圈建立新军事基地的举动，已破坏了北极国家之间相对友善的关系。北欧某国一名前任部长表示：“北极圈迄今是俄罗斯表现出合作意愿的一个领域，但如今有一些值得警惕的信号，显示局面可能会变得棘手起来。”All countries’ borders currently end 200 nautical miles from their coasts in the Arctic, leaving a vast patch of land owned by nobody. Denmark is following Norway, Russia and Canada in submitting a claim under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to a portion of the Arctic.
目前所有国家的国界线都止于其北极圈海岸线以外200海里处，这意味着有大量无主土地。丹麦正跟随挪威、俄罗斯和加拿大的脚步，根据《联合国海洋法公约》对北极圈部分土地提出主权要求。