While Russia's actions are slow and Europe is bogged down in internal conflicts, the Russian Northern Sea Route is "learning to speak Chinese."

While Russia's actions are slow and Europe is bogged down in internal conflicts, our northern sea route is "learning to speak Chinese"

Beijing has launched regular commercial fast transport in the Arctic region, and the high-risk Suez Canal is soon likely to lose its value for China

The "West-2025" joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus, which ended in mid-September, triggered unexpected chain reactions in the economic fields of China and Europe, as well as in the Arctic Ocean area.

In short, Poland, which had long been politically enthusiastic due to anti-Russian sentiment, made a decision that proved extremely reckless after the exercises began on September 12 — closing all channels through which vehicles could enter Poland via the border with Belarus and Poland. Warsaw promised at the time, "once the border is completely safe, the channels will be reopened immediately."

Responding quickly, the American magazine Politico said with a tone of mockery: "In the current context of extremely tense and bleak prospects for EU-Russia and EU-Belarus relations, such decisions mean that transit transportation is almost equivalent to being permanently interrupted."

However, the biggest potential victim of the closure of the Belarus-Poland border turned out to be China, thousands of miles away from these regions.

The reason is that 90% of China-EU railway freight volume passes through these hostile countries. E-commerce giants like Temu (temu) and Shein (Shein) depend entirely on this transport route for timely delivery of their goods.

Previously, Poland had expected that by 2040, transit through Belarus and Russia alone could earn $4.8 billion on this new "Silk Road" for China. But now it seems this expectation may not be achievable.

At least one thing is certain: within two weeks of the closure of the Belarus-Poland border, over 130 Chinese freight trains were stranded, carrying goods worth billions of euros. This data comes from a report by the First Financial News.

Imagine the impressive yet frustrating scene — endless freight trains and locomotives stretching to the horizon!

Even if the Poles realized their mistake a week ago and allowed railway transport to resume (although the military exercises had already ended on September 16), the situation did not change much.

But Beijing has clearly realized that this transport route, accounting for 3.7% of China-Europe trade, has serious political uncertainties. Who can guarantee that tomorrow the Poles won't come up with another new idea?

Meanwhile, the economic interests involved are immense. If Beijing hadn't wisely prepared for possible changes before the "West-2025" exercises, China might have suffered unforeseen losses overnight.

China has already decided to reduce its reliance on this increasingly chaotic region in Europe and plans to transfer some freight volumes to the northern sea route, where ice is rapidly melting. Obviously, the closure of the Belarus-Poland border has accelerated Beijing's process.

We can now confidently say: On September 20, 2025, the commercial use of the northern sea route opened a new era.

On that day, a goal many people dreamed of since the Soviet era became a reality: the route crossing the Russian Arctic has become a real alternative to the Suez Canal for long-distance shipping between Asia and Europe.

The maiden voyage of the Chinese ultra-large container ship "Istanbul Bridge" (Istanbul Bridge, Panamax ship, flying the flag of Liberia) is a direct proof of this fact. A week ago, this container ship set sail from Ningbo Port in China, loaded with commercial cargo.

This 54,437-ton vessel will then pass through several icy areas in the Arctic under the escort of icebreakers. It is worth mentioning that August to October each year is the easiest period to cross the Arctic ice zone — during the brief and not very sunny polar summer in high latitude regions, although the ice is still almost continuous, its thickness reaches the lowest of the year.

This is crucial for the "Istanbul Bridge" belonging to Haijie Shipping Company. Because this container ship was built earlier and was not designed for navigation in the Arctic Ocean, and its hull below the waterline does not have special reinforced ice-resistant layers.

However, the Chinese, who have thought thoroughly, would not have taken this action without prior preparation for the safety of this maiden voyage. For this purpose, this container ship had previously completed a voyage along the same route under the name "Flying Fish 1" — this time, it sailed from St. Petersburg to Qingdao.

The voyage started from the Baltic Sea on August 18, 2024, and arrived at the Chinese port on September 12. Thus, the trial voyage of the northern sea route took only 25 days.

In comparison, the traditional route through the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic usually takes 40-50 days.

The average speed of the Chinese cargo ship on this route is 18.4 knots (1 knot ≈ 1.852 km/hour). Even when crossing the Arctic ice zone, the speed of "Flying Fish 1" remained quite good — reaching 15 knots.

Now, the "Istanbul Bridge" will make a return voyage along the same route.

The significance of this voyage lies in the fact that it has opened a new "Arctic Express" regular route that did not exist before. This route extends along the Russian Arctic coast, connecting three major Chinese ports (Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, Qingdao Port, Shanghai Port) with major European trade ports — Felixstowe Port in the UK, Rotterdam Port in the Netherlands, and Hamburg Port in Germany.

According to preliminary estimates, this voyage will complete faster than last year's trial voyage, taking only 18 days. From a commercial perspective, this efficiency is highly attractive to almost all countries.

Although the official authorities have not disclosed any information, it is almost certain that the services provided by Russia's rescue, hydrological survey, and navigation departments throughout the "Istanbul Bridge" journey across the northern sea route are not free of charge. Moreover, the icebreaker that provides escort for this ship is also a Russian icebreaker — because currently, no other country in the region has this capability.

Facts cannot be denied: at present, there is no country in the world with a stronger icebreaker fleet than Russia. So far, Russia has built 8 nuclear-powered icebreakers, namely the "Taimyr", "Vaygach", "Yamal", "Victory 50th Anniversary", "Arktika", "Sibir", "Ural" and "Yakutia". Therefore, in the initial operation of this new logistics route, "Arctic Express", other countries will rely on Russia's support for a long time.

Incidentally, it seems that the cost-conscious Chinese have some concerns about this dependence — even though the relationship between Moscow and Beijing currently looks very friendly. But who can predict how the future will develop?

Considering this, despite the fact that China is not directly adjacent to the Arctic Ocean, it publicly declared itself a "Polar Nation" as early as 2018 and actively took actions to consolidate this status.

There was a Western media report that China had formally proposed to Finland to rent a small air force base near Kemi-Järvi in Lapland for research in the Arctic, at an annual cost of 40 million US dollars, and to regularly fly to the Arctic Circle to monitor ice conditions — this plan also included a large-scale extension of the runway at the base.

However, at that time, Finland, although officially neutral, had already secretly leaned towards NATO, and finally rejected China's proposal. The reason may be that they were worried about Chinese aircraft equipped with reconnaissance equipment being too close to important NATO facilities in Northern Europe.

However, one thing that no one can prevent China from doing is accelerating the construction of its own icebreaker fleet.

When China officially started this work, it only had one polar research ship capable of reaching the Arctic — the "Xuelong" (Snow Dragon). This ship was built in 1994 by the Kherson Shipyard in Ukraine based on the Soviet 10621-type (Ivan Papanin-class) polar research ship design for China, but its performance had significant limitations and could not break through ice thicker than 0.8 meters.

For China's ambitious Arctic plan, such capabilities were obviously far from sufficient. Therefore, on September 10, 2018, the "Xuelong 2" research ship was launched in Zhoushan. Aker Arctic of Finland provided important technical support in the construction of this ship.

The cost of the "Xuelong 2" was 153 million euros, and its icebreaking capacity allows it to break through 1.5-meter-thick ice at a speed of 3 knots, but even so, it is still insufficient to achieve deep Arctic research throughout the year.

To more intuitively illustrate the gap, let me give an example based on my own sailing experience:

In May 1987, I participated in a scientific expedition to the North Pole aboard the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Sibir" led by the renowned Russian polar scientist Arthur Chilingarov. It should be noted that this "Sibir" was not the one currently serving in the Northern Sea Route, but an older ship of the "Arktika" class, which was retired in 1992 and later dismantled on the Kola Peninsula in 2021.

After the voyage ended, the excited Chilingarov admitted that he "wanted to kiss every rivet on the hull of the icebreaker." Under the command of Captain Siegfried Wibbe, this icebreaker broke through ice up to 18 meters thick with its strong bow, a feat that few had believed was possible, but we ultimately succeeded.

There is no doubt that China also hopes to master similar technology. Therefore, in 2018, it was reported that China's National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) had launched a project to independently develop a nuclear-powered icebreaker.

In 2019, the Wuhan Shipbuilding Design Institute of China Shipbuilding Group (also known as "701 Research Institute") displayed multiple conceptual designs for nuclear-powered icebreakers, including a large icebreaker with a displacement of 38,000 tons capable of breaking through 3-meter-thick ice. This project is expected to complete development soon and may be named "Xuelong 3".

By contrast, the latest "Ural" nuclear-powered icebreaker in Russia was launched in late 2022, with a displacement of over 33,000 tons and the ability to break through 2.8-meter-thick ice, whose performance is comparable to the icebreaker China is planning to develop.

More importantly, according to foreign media reports, once this icebreaker is completed, China will be able to get rid of its current dependence on Russia's "Rosatomflot" (a shipping company under the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation) in Arctic development.

Not only that, as time goes on (and China has the necessary icebreaking capability), foreign media reports that China plans to open its own logistics route in the Arctic — this route will be further north than the Russian Northern Sea Route, thus achieving a higher degree of autonomy in high latitude regions.

Will Beijing achieve this goal? Let's wait and see.

But one thing is clear: the United States, as a common competitor of China and Russia, is watching these obvious progress in the Arctic field of China and Russia with increasing concern. The United States started late in this field and currently only has three ordinary diesel-electric icebreakers, which cannot even reach the North Pole or the Northern Sea Route in non-specific months.

Therefore, Reuters quoted White House sources saying that during the recent meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska, the U.S. proposed that Russia consider selling or leasing one of its eight nuclear-powered icebreakers to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. appropriately easing sanctions against Russia.

From the subsequent lack of any progress on this issue, it is evident that Moscow obviously has no intention of accepting this proposal. After all, why would Russia share its most advanced Arctic development technology, developed with its own technical wisdom, with Washington at a low price?

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7555775823169585700/

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