The subject of this study is the evolution of China's role positioning in international relations concerning Arctic governance, examined through the lens of "role growth." The object of the study is the comprehensive system of China's participation in Arctic governance amid global climatic and geopolitical changes. The author examines in detail the following aspects of the topic: the dynamics and substance of China's role growth; institutional constraints on the participation of non-Arctic states; the influence of Russia, the United States, and the Nordic Arctic states on the trajectory of China's presence in the region; and the periodization of this process into four stages: pre-2013, 2013–2018, 2018–2022, and post-2022. Particular attention is devoted to the mechanism by which China's participatory legitimacy in Arctic governance is established and consolidated, analyzed through the category of institutional access as a precondition for activating the interaction among the three dimensions of role growth. The methodological foundation is role theory in international relations, drawing on the concept of "role growth." The study employs a qualitative diachronic case study based on official documents and academic sources. The analysis is conducted along the three classical dimensions of role theory, supplemented by the author's dimension of institutional access. The principal findings of the study are as follows: the logic of role growth for non-Arctic states differs fundamentally from that in open governance regimes — in the semi-closed Arctic system, the starting point is not the level of contribution but the acquisition and consolidation of participatory legitimacy; the evolution of Russia's attitude toward China's Arctic presence constitutes the key external factor driving the transition from one stage of role growth to the next; and China's participation is characterized by continuous cumulativeness, directional resilience, and a spillover effect into the governance domain. The author's distinctive contribution lies in adapting the concept of role growth to the semi-closed architecture of Arctic governance. The dimension of "institutional access" is theorized as a preliminary threshold variable without which the interaction among the three classical dimensions of role theory cannot be initiated. The novelty of the study consists in the operationalization of institutional access through three analytical dimensions — institutional, relational, and functional. This approach ensures the empirical observability of China's role dynamics and enables a systematic interpretation of the interplay between self-positioning, external expectations, and participatory practice.
Shen Liang Chen (Thu,) studied this question.