ICAS was proud to present a breakout session at the 2025 Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 16 at the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center in conjunction with the Beijing Club for International Dialogue to discuss China’s Arctic ambitions.
Featured speakers were Dr. Nong Hong, Executive Director and Senior Fellow at ICAS, Prof. Henry Lee of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative, Dr. Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and Dr. Irina Strelnikova of HSE University. The breakout session was moderated by Ms. Han Hua of Beijing Club for International Dialogue.
Dr. Nong Hong holds a PhD of interdisciplinary study of international law and international relations from the University of Alberta, Canada and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the University’s China Institute. She was ITLOS-Nippon Fellow for International Dispute Settlement and Visiting Fellow at Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, the Center of Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia, and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.
Prof. Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program and Co-Chair of the Arctic Initiative in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS. Before joining HKS in 1979, Lee spent nine years in Massachusetts State Government as Director of the State’s Energy Office and Special Assistant to the Governor for Environmental Policy. He has served on numerous state, federal, and private advisory boards concerning energy and the environment. Lee is a former Chairman of the Massachusetts Stewardship Council, which oversees state parks and recreation facilities. Additionally, he has worked with private and public organizations, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, the State of Sao Paulo, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, the National Research Council, the Intercontinental Energy Corporation, General Electric, and the U.S. EPA.
Dr. Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen is a Danish political scientist and International Relations scholar. He is the inaugural Barents Chair in Politics at the University of Tromsø-The Arctic University of Norway. Dr. Bertelsen does research on the place of the Arctic in global environmental and political-economic globalisation processes. He is therefore focused on the role of the Arctic in a transforming international order where Asia is reclaiming its historical economic and political weight. Dr. Bertelsen has studied political science at the Universities of Copenhagen, Iceland, Lausanne and Geneva. Dr. Bertelsen holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. He was a postdoc at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Irina Strelnikova is an Associate Professor of World Economy and International Affairs at HSE University, where she is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS). She has a degree in Law from State University of Management and a PhD from the Kutafin Moscow State Law Academy.
Ms. Han Hua is the co-founder and secretary general of the Beijing Club for International Dialogue. Hua is a veteran journalist, international political scholar and commentator. She was a core member of the press corps covering the state visits of Chinese leaders for six years, and served as vice-president of News Corporation Greater China for nearly a decade. Before the Beijing Club, Hua was the founding board member of the China Forum at Tsinghua University. She holds a BA from Shanghai International Studies University and an MBA from both Beijing University and Fordham University.
