Russia seeking China's help to develop Arctic shipping route - is it worth it for Beijing?

Russia is seeking China's help in developing an Arctic sea route that could almost halve the journey time between Europe and Asia, although the heightened geopolitical risk and Moscow's suspicion about Beijing's intentions in the region may limit their scope for cooperation.

Russia hopes the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will become a year-round shipping lane as global warming makes it possible to send ships through waters that were previously only passable in summer.

Some shipping is already using the route, but at the moment it is only passable for around 20 to 30 days a year along a 5,600km stretch between the Kara Sea, off the northwest coast of Siberia, to the Bering Strait, which separates Russia from Alaska.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

But as more of the Arctic's ice melts, the route may eventually be extended to Scandinavia and offer easier access to the North Sea than the Baltic.

Travelling between Shanghai and St Petersburg along this route would take a cargo ship around 20 days, compared with around 36 days via the Red Sea and Suez Canal, according to Russian media.

Cargo carried along the route could reach 270 million tonnes by 2035 - a nearly 10-fold increase on 2022, according to Rosatom, the Russian agency that oversees the sea lane.

The impact of Western sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has increased Moscow's sense of urgency in developing and expanding its use.

Although China relies on the sea to transport more than 60 per cent of its trade by volume so the route could help offset the risk from using existing routes, Wang Yue, a doctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland, said "Russia is significantly more motivated than China" to develop the route.

Wang, who specialises in security and geopolitics in the Arctic, said the importance the two countries attached to the route "greatly varied".

"For Russia, the Arctic region is a top strategic and economic priority, and the NSR is crucial for transporting its abundant Arctic resources to the market," he said.

"In contrast, while the Arctic is important to China, it is just one of many emerging strategic areas, and the NSR is merely a valuable alternative to traditional shipping routes."

Russia has just over half the Arctic Ocean's coastline. For a long time, particularly during the Cold War, security was its main concern in the region, although Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a series of measures to start developing its resources and boost scientific research in the last years of the Soviet Union.

But Russia remained deeply suspicious of foreign involvement in the Arctic, particularly from non-Arctic nations. It opposed granting China observer status on the Arctic Council, the main international forum for coordinating policy, until 2013.

Faced with economic isolation over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is now turning to China for help in developing the sea route with President Vladimir Putin saying last year there were "promising" signs in this regard.

In May the two sides agreed to set up a committee to "push forward the development of the Arctic shipping route into an important international transportation corridor" and increase shipping traffic and infrastructure.

Zhao Long, a senior research fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said: "In the face of the deepening crisis in the Red Sea, [China] could also help explore the economic, technical and environmental viability of NSR as a 'complementary corridor' for international transportation."

In recent months shipping passing through the Red Sea en route for the Suez Canal has come under attack from Yemen's Houthi rebels in what they say is a show of support for Gaza.

The route's importance - and its vulnerability as a potential choke point - was highlighted three years ago when a ship became stuck in the canal, blocking an estimated US$9.6 billion worth of trade.

Other major sea lanes are also becoming increasingly risky.

The South China Sea, which is used by an estimated 60 per cent of global maritime trade, has seen an increase in tensions after a series of confrontations between Beijing and rival claimants, most notably the Philippines.

Chinese shipping passing through the waters has to pass through the Strait of Malacca, where a blockade could cut vital lines of communication between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean - a problem known as the Malacca dilemma.

Meanwhile in the Panama Canal, a prolonged drought has forced substantial cuts to the number of daily ship crossings that have been in force since October.

Zhao said developing the Arctic route could also boost cooperation between China and Russia in areas such as infrastructure, shipbuilding and energy exploration - but warned that the benefits for Beijing should not be overstated.

Currently the sea lane is only crossed by a relatively small number of cargo ships.

According to Rosatom, last year saw 80 transit voyages along the sea route with a total tonnage of more than 36 million tonnes. By contrast Suez saw more than 26,000 ships passing through.

Chinese firms also risk being targeted by Western efforts to tighten sanctions on Russia, including moves by the European Union to target Russian supplies of liquefied natural gas.

Last month the first Chinese shipyard - Penglai Jutal Offshore Engineering Heavy Industries, which builds and ships natural gas liquefaction technology - was sanctioned by the US over its involvement in Russian oil and gas projects.

A few days later, Wison New Energies, a Chinese engineering firm that had been providing equipment for Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Siberia, said it was suspending its operations in the country "after careful and thorough evaluation".

"These [measures] will increase the commercial risks of joint Chinese-Russian development of the NSR. Shipping and offshore companies, which build modules and engineering equipment for Russia's Arctic projects, as well as the transport companies involved in the NSR will be subjected to long-arm jurisdiction risks," Zhao said.

Wang, from Tampere University, warned there were still major hurdles to overcome in developing the route, including the harsh environment, short shipping window, the need for specialised equipment and, most critically, the lack of infrastructure.

"In theory, Chinese investment could help bridge these infrastructure gaps. However, several factors may deter Chinese investors from committing substantial funds, including China's focus on domestic economic development under the dual circulation strategy, the relatively low trade volume between China and Russia and escalating geopolitical tensions," he said.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, trade between Russia and China has expanded dramatically -from US$146.9 billion in 2021 to US$240.1 billion last year - but this is dwarfed by trade with the United States, which last year stood at US$664.4 billion.

Fuel is currently the main cargo shipped through the Arctic, but Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, said it was unclear how interested China would be in exploiting the region's hydrocarbon resources given its goal of reaching peak emissions by 2030.

Vladimir Putin pictured with Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing in May. Photo: AP alt=Vladimir Putin pictured with Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing in May. Photo: AP>

He also said the proposed new route may not resolve the Malacca dilemma because it passes through the Bering Strait, a key choke point between Russia and Alaska.

"It stands to reason that if there is a major military confrontation between the US and China, the US may just as well attempt to block the Bering Strait, denying it to Chinese shipping," Lukin said.

To avoid this risk China and Russia could instead focus on developing waterways in the continental Eurasia to link China to the Northern Sea Route via Siberia's great rivers, but this would be expensive.

"However, if realised, China and Russia will get a link connecting Asia and the Arctic Ocean, which, among other things, will be immune to US interference," Lukin said.

There are signs the two sides have made progress on the scheme since Putin's most recent visit to China in May.

Soon after, the Chinese supply chain and real estate development corporation Xiamen C&D Group agreed to help develop Russia's Baltic Sea Ust-Luga Container Terminal in the Leningrad region along with the operator Delo group, according to the news portal portseurope.com.

Meanwhile, Rosatom and Hainan Yangpu NewNew Shipping have agreed a deal to operate a year-round container line on the Northern Sea Route.

This will include a joint venture agreement to design and build ice-class container ships and jointly operate the line. Last year, NewNew Shipping made seven voyages on the Northern Sea Route, a number expected to grow to 12 this year.

The report by Ports Europe also said that Ke Jin, a Russia-based executive from NewNew, had also expressed interest in developing Russia's Barents Sea port of Arkhangelsk , the western terminus of the Northern Sea Route.

Dmitry Yurkov, the official responsible for Arctic development in the Arkhangelsk region, told Russia's Tass news agency that there had been some 40 voyages between Arkhangelsk and Shanghai this year.

In 2016, the local government signed an agreement with Beijing-based Poly Group to construct a deep-water port there in 2016, but no significant progress has been made since then.

Wang said he expected further cooperation between the two countries, "but the extent and significance remain uncertain in the foreseeable future".

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.