In the Arctic, Beijing seeks resources and routes toward the West, with an eye on approaching the American coast and immobilizing Moscow. The importance of the Far North in China’s nuclear deterrence. Xi will not leave North Korea to Putin.
In the broader design of the People’s Republic of China, the Arctic represents a decisive theater in becoming the hub of a new international system that can rival America. Not only to duel with Washington, but also to confine Russia to the role of a junior partner — to prevent it from again becoming a threat, as it was between the 19th and 20th centuries, possibly even in coordination with the U.S.
China’s project became clear last September at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and later during the military parade in Beijing celebrating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia — an event the PRC remembers primarily as the victorious “resistance of the Chinese people” against Japan and fascism. In Tiananmen Square, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) displayed its most advanced weapons. Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, both key figures in China’s polar ambitions, watched alongside Xi Jinping.
A month later, Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited North Korea — the first senior Chinese official to do so since 2019. The message was clear: Beijing will not allow Moscow to pull Pyongyang out of its sphere of influence, especially now that China aims for the difficult unification with Taiwan while also turning its gaze toward the Arctic.
Also in October, a new trade route between China and Europe via the Arctic was inaugurated — another branch of the so-called “Ice Silk Road” (bingshang sichou zhilu), part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This event revived debate on the importance of the Far North for future East–West maritime routes that could serve as alternatives to the Suez Canal. The Istanbul Bridge, a vessel of the Chinese company SeaLegend Line, took 26 days to travel from Ningbo to Gdańsk, Poland — stopping in Felixstowe (UK), Rotterdam (Netherlands), and Hamburg (Germany). Sailing the Northern Sea Route through largely Russian waters saved two weeks compared to the traditional Suez route, which takes 40 days.
The search for such alternatives is not only about the risk that Middle Eastern wars could disrupt trade flows to the West. It’s also about the possibility that, in a future U.S.–China confrontation in the Indo-Pacific, Washington could blockade the Strait of Malacca — currently China’s main maritime chokepoint. Additionally, developing the polar route would boost the economies of northeastern provinces such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, and Shandong.
Beijing also sees Moscow’s granting it access to the port of Vladivostok as a way to facilitate maritime transport between northern and southern China — and a small revenge on the Kremlin, since the port was part of the Chinese Empire before Russia seized it in 1860.
Yet Beijing’s priority is not to rely solely on these difficult polar routes. The Northwest Passage is monitored by America; the Northern Sea Route is under Russian control; the transpolar route crosses international waters in the Arctic Ocean, but for now only icebreakers can navigate it. It will become fully navigable when the polar ice cap melts — likely in summer between 2030 and 2050.
For now, China’s goal is to secure an economic and military presence in the Arctic — to extract valuable natural resources (gas, oil, rare earths, etc.) and strengthen deterrence against both Washington and Moscow. The Arctic sits along the shortest flight path for intercontinental ballistic missiles — from northern Russia and America’s east coast toward China, and vice versa. During the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, the USSR even threatened nuclear strikes on China. Today, as then, those missiles would come from the north.
Moreover, by operating in the Arctic, the PLA would be closer to potential targets in Europe and America — a goal hinted at in 2015, when Chinese warships sailed near Alaska for the first time. In the past decade, China has rapidly strengthened its armed forces to become a maritime power capable of operating in both the Pacific and Atlantic.
Beijing has also worked to build Arctic infrastructure links — a geographic convergence point between two oceans — and to expand its slow but steady economic and security presence in Central Asia: a pincer maneuver designed to immobilize Russia. Shared hostility toward Washington doesn’t erase the strategic rivalry between Beijing and Moscow.
For Xi, monitoring the risky collaboration between Russia and North Korea is crucial as he negotiates with the U.S. Beijing isn’t only seeking a trade compromise — it wants to stabilize relations with Washington and push it to reduce support for Taiwan, potentially by force if needed. But without a secure northern front, China cannot focus on its contest with America.
The People’s Republic officially calls itself a “near-Arctic state” (jin Beiji guojia). Yet China lies more than 5,000 kilometers from the North Pole, and its historical inexperience with the sea delayed its arrival in the region.
In the 5th century BCE, Taoist philosopher Lie Yukou wrote of the utopian kingdom of Zhongbei (“Extreme North”) in the Book of Perfect Emptiness (Liezi). It was supposedly discovered by the legendary Yu, founder of the Xia dynasty (2183–1752 BCE), whose existence supports Xi’s claim of China’s 5,000-year-old civilization — a key part of legitimizing China’s return as the “Middle Kingdom” (Zhongguo).
According to Lie, Yu reached the “Extreme North” by accident, after taming floods along the Yellow River. It was described as a flat land with mild weather and peaceful, pure-hearted people.
Myth aside, Mongols of the Yuan dynasty explored beyond Lake Baikal in the 13th century, following the Angara and Yenisei Rivers into Siberia. Later, the Ming dynasty preferred sailing the warmer Indian Ocean over exploring the cold North.
The turning point came in the 20th century. In 1925, the Republic of China signed the Spitsbergen Treaty, which still allows Beijing to conduct industrial and commercial operations around Svalbard.
When the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Skate surfaced at the Pole in 1959, Mao Zedong decided the new PRC must also acquire nuclear submarines. The USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev refused to share the technology, saying it was too complex and that China didn’t need it under Soviet protection. He even proposed a joint Sino-Soviet fleet under Moscow’s command. Offended, Mao vowed that China would develop the technology “even if it took ten thousand years.” It took only ten.
China’s Arctic expeditions increased in the 1990s with voyages of the research vessel Xuelong (“Snow Dragon”), built in Ukraine — like the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier. In 2003, Beijing opened the Yellow River research station at Ny-Ålesund in Norway. Between 2005 and 2017, China invested about $1.4 trillion in Arctic states, mostly in infrastructure and resource extraction.
In 2013, when Xi took power, China became an accredited observer to the Arctic Council. Two years later, it proclaimed itself a “near-Arctic state.” Moscow disliked this claim. In 2020, Russian official Nikolai Korkhunov (now ambassador to Norway) publicly rejected the term, echoing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
At that time, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was still gaining traction in Europe (even Italy had joined), enabling China to foster infrastructure, cultural, and tourism projects with Arctic neighbors: a satellite base in Kiruna (Sweden, 2016), a space observatory in Karholl (Iceland, 2012), and one in Sodankylä (Finland, 2018–2021).
In 2016, China Poly Group signed a $78 billion memorandum with Russia’s Arkhangelsk region to build a new port connected to the Trans-Siberian Railway — a project that never materialized, like many Sino-Russian ventures. In 2019, the Norwegian city of Kirkenes dubbed itself “the northernmost Chinatown in the world” during the Barents Spektakel festival.
Chinese soft power in the Arctic hasn’t taken hold as Beijing hoped. Over time, concerns about the security implications of its activities have grown, and China has faced tensions with several countries.
In Canada, relations soured after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in 2018 at Washington’s request. Beijing retaliated by detaining Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The standoff ended only in 2021 with their simultaneous release. At the 2022 G20 summit in Bali, Xi publicly scolded Canadian PM Justin Trudeau on camera over leaked confidential discussions — a rare public show of irritation. Relations remain at a historic low.
Ties with Sweden collapsed after the 2015 arrest of Chinese-Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai in Hong Kong. All Confucius Institutes in Sweden were shut down, sister-city partnerships ended, and China lost access to the Kiruna satellite station after Swedish Space Corporation refused to renew its contract.
In Greenland — coveted for its proximity to North America and vast resources (iron, rare earths, uranium, zinc, copper, etc.) — Chinese firms launched several mining and infrastructure projects, mostly along the southern coast, though many were later halted. In 2016, a Chinese company even tried to buy the abandoned Kangilinnguit base, but Denmark blocked the sale, likely under U.S. pressure. The 2018 satellite station at Kangerlussuaq, officially for climate research, also had possible military applications; its status remains unclear.
The gas pipeline deal between Xi and Putin for Power of Siberia 2 last September confirms the Arctic’s central role in China’s energy strategy and Beijing’s efforts to tighten its grip on Putin. The pipeline will link Arctic Yamal gas fields to China via Mongolia.
Russia’s loss of European energy markets after invading Ukraine forced Moscow to rely on China as its “buyer of last resort.” This supports Russia’s war economy while deepening China’s leverage over the Kremlin and diversifying its own energy supplies. In 2024, Gazprom sold China 31 billion cubic meters of gas — far short of the 155 billion it once sold Europe, and even Power of Siberia 2’s projected 50 bcm per year won’t bridge that gap. Prices will also be negotiated separately.
Still, this energy partnership lets Beijing push into areas Moscow once resisted — including Chinese maritime presence in the Arctic. The two countries plan a joint research center in the Soviet-era Pyramiden settlement on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, where, under the 1920 treaty, Russia can operate economically without Norwegian interference.
In 2024, the Sino-Russian Subcommission for Cooperation along the Northern Sea Route was created. That same year, Russia’s FSB (Federal Security Border Service) and China’s Coast Guard (CCG) signed a memorandum on maritime law enforcement. The CCG — now under China’s People’s Armed Police, and ultimately the Central Military Commission led by Xi — made its first Arctic voyage in 2024.
As in 2024, Chinese and Russian armed forces held joint naval drills in 2025 between the Sea of Japan and the Arctic — though their nuclear submarines were excluded, likely to conceal true capabilities.
China is now developing vessels suited for Arctic operations, intended as deterrents against both Russia and the U.S., especially if Washington intervenes militarily in the Indo-Pacific (for example, to defend Taiwan).
In 2018, Harbin Engineering University studied submarine surfacing techniques under ice. Such submarines are harder to detect. In 2025, the same university simulated new acoustic technologies to locate underwater targets in the Beaufort Sea (off Alaska and Canada), whose layered waters hinder sonar. The area is rich in rare earths, oil, and gas — and serves as a transit point for U.S. submarines entering the Northern Sea Route.
These studies used data gathered by Xuelong 2 (China’s first domestically built polar vessel) during its 2020 Arctic expedition. In July 2025, it was spotted with four other ships near Alaska.
In 2024, China also launched Tan Suo San Hao, the first vessel capable of deep-sea scientific and archaeological work under ice — something only Russia had done before, in 2007. Russia still leads the world with 46 icebreakers (and about 10 more under construction). Together, China and Russia have 51 — one reason why Trump wants to raise the U.S. fleet from 2 to 40, while NATO collectively has 35.
In the future, China may also use fishing fleets to normalize its Arctic presence. For now, their activity there is minor compared to operations off Africa or Latin America. Still, Beijing seeks a seat at the table on Arctic fishing rights — and Chinese trawlers already operate in the Baltic Sea. Lithuania, Finland, and Sweden have accused China of damaging undersea Internet cables — similar to incidents around Taiwan — as part of asymmetric warfare targeting critical infrastructure.
Moscow is using its mutual defense pact with North Korea — which allowed North Korean troops to fight in Ukraine — as a bargaining chip against Beijing, to obstruct China’s encirclement strategy. The Kremlin exploits Pyongyang’s desire to reduce its economic dependence on China, which still accounts for 98% of North Korea’s trade and supplies most of its food and energy.
North Korea’s goal is to maintain a delicate balance among the powers surrounding it — Russia, China, Japan, and the U.S. Beijing, meanwhile, wants to keep Pyongyang firmly within its orbit, as it serves as a vital strategic buffer keeping 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea away from China’s borders.
This explains why Putin and Kim are reluctant to grant China access to the Tumen River (which partly borders North Korea, China, and Russia) to reach the Sea of Japan. Seoul claims Russia is even transferring nuclear submarine technology to North Korea — the same technology Khrushchev once denied Mao.
The Putin–Kim partnership could inflame tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Russian support for Pyongyang’s military projects could accelerate Japanese and South Korean rearmament — both encouraged by Donald Trump — thus undermining China’s security in its coastal and northeastern regions.
Such instability could distract Beijing from Taiwan’s unification and prevent it from “putting Russia on ice” — all crucial factors in the long-term competition with the United States, regardless of how upcoming Xi–Trump talks shape a temporary coexistence.
Originally Published on Limes, Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica – Issue “Tutti contro Tutti” (All Against All), no. 10, 2025
