China seeks its Silk Road in the Arctic

Nuclear propulsion, capable of split ice up to two and a half meters thick China’s latest Arctic icebreaker is a powerful symbol of Beijing’s ambitions in the Far North, where tensions have risen due to US President Donald’s attempts Trump to claim control of Greenland. He dedicated a long article to him Financial Times.

“Multi-role” cargo ship

China’s state-run 708 Research Institute, which designed the ship, says it will be a “multi-role” cargo ship and for polar tourism and should become the prototype of future creations. While China describes its interests in the region in terms of trade and research, few analysts doubt the dual civil-military intent of the Arctic program of Beijing, from the creation of research bases to cooperation in the oil and gas sector, up to joint military patrols with Russia near Alaska.

China’s icebreaker construction program has fueled the Western alarm for Chinese and Russian advances in the Arctic, which Trump used to justify the American acquisition of Greenland. “China sees the Arctic as a key new frontier for its geopolitical and geostrategic competition with the United States and the West in general,” said Helena Legarda, Merics’ foreign relations program manager.

“Beijing wants to expand its influence, its presence and its access to the Arctic.” They are ambitions that have heightened the concerns of experts and policymakers in the United States and other Western capitals, who foresee a rush to secure faster, cheaper shipping routes and rich natural resources as the polar ice caps melt.

Lots of resources

The Arctic offers countless possibilities ranging from space and satellite warfare to the strategic positioning of nuclear submarines, increasing the risk that tensions turn into clashes in the race to control the emerging territory. The shipyard that built China’s first icebreaker also delivered the Fujian, China’s third aircraft carrier but the most advanced and, on paper, capable of competing with the American Gerald Ford, which entered service at the end of last year with some of the most advanced military technologies in the country. The shipyard is managed by the state giant China State Shipbuilding Corp.

China has had ambitions in the Arctic for decades

But its activity has rapidly accelerated in recent years, in line with its growing economic and geopolitical influence. Beijing bought its first icebreaker, the Xue Long (Snow Dragon), from Ukraine in 1993, before starting to develop its own national fleet. In 2004, it opened its first permanent Arctic research station inNorwegian archipelago of Svalbard, followed by another in Iceland in 2018.

The same year, Beijing unveiled its Arctic policy, which calls for “a ‘Polar Silk Road’ through the development of Arctic shipping lanes.” The policy has promoted China’s research and “hydrographic surveys” in the region, which China says aim to improve “security and logistics capabilities in the Arctic.” Icebreakers are key to projecting power in the polar regions, allowing countries to penetrate often frozen territory and maintain a presence.

US efforts

The Trump administration allocated $9 billion for icebreakers and infrastructure in the Arctic and Antarctic to “ensure U.S. access, security, and leadership in the polar regions,” the Defense Department said in December. China called itself a “quasi-Arctic state” in its 2018 policy statement, drawing a sharp rebuke from then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “There are only Arctic states and non-Arctic states,” Pompeo said. “There is no third category, and saying otherwise doesn’t give China any rights.”

Until a few years ago, Merics’ Legarda said, Europe was China’s preferred partner in the Arctic. But after Europe began to “de-risk” China and Russia following the Covid-19 pandemic and Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has moved closer to its northern neighbor.

Major shipping routes from Europe to China pass through NATO-controlled territories, including Canada and Greenland. In recent years, China has been particularly interested in a northern sea route passing through Russian waters. The Arctic routes “they can reduce travel distances by 30 to 40% compared to traditional route of the Suez Canal”, Yu Yun, a researcher at the 708 Research Institute, told state newspaper China Daily.

China reported in September that a container ship called Istanbul Bridgesailed from Ningbo in the eastern province of Zhejiang via the Arctic North Sea Route to the British port of Felixstowe. It said the voyage marked “the official opening of the world’s first Arctic express shipping container route between China and Europe,” a route dubbed the “China-Europe Arctic Express.”