The Polar Silk Road: nine years on and still not a master plan for the Arctic

3 September 2026

As Donald Trump yet again remarks that Greenland is “surrounded by China ships and Russian ships”, we are reminded that US anxieties over the island are entangled with suspicions about China’s interests in the Arctic, and especially with the Polar Silk Road (冰上丝绸之路, literally, the “Silk Road on Ice”). The reality of the Polar Silk Road, however, looks rather different from these anxieties. When Vladimir Putin visited Beijing this May, the Arctic was once again at the top of the bilateral cooperation agenda. Although Putin yet again failed to secure a Chinese commitment to the Power of Siberia‑2 gas pipeline, the joint statement did mention that Russia and China would “consistently promote practical cooperation in order to increase cargo flow along the Northern Sea Route”. This rhetoric of cooperation is not new. The National Development and Reform Commission first announced China’s ambition to develop a “blue economic passage” through the Arctic Ocean towards Europe in June 2017; a month later, the term “Polar Silk Road” was officially announced during Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, when he said that China and Russia “must carry out cooperation on Arctic waterways, jointly build the ‘Polar Silk Road’, and implement relevant connectivity projects”. Nine years on, however, the Polar Silk Road remains more a political slogan than an action plan for Chinese strategic investment in the Arctic.

A parallel play between Russia and China

Like most components of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the scope of the Polar Silk Road is not defined. The initiative serves as a blanket term for much of China’s cooperative projects in the Arctic region and encompasses both Arctic shipping and energy investment. The Polar Silk Road is a result of long negotiations about Russia’s support for the One Belt One Road initiative (later rebranded as the Belt and Road Initiative). Initially, Russia saw the initiative as an attempt to bypass the country and as a rival to Russia’s own Eurasian integration. However, in 2015 Xi and Putin agreed to “link” the Eurasian Economic Union with the Silk Road Economic Belt. Soon after, the two countries for the first time agreed on “joint development and utilisation of the Northern Sea Route” and Arctic shipping. In addition, the two countries agreed that China’s Silk Road Fund would acquire a 9.9 per cent stake in Russia’s Yamal LNG project.

Fears that the Polar Silk Road is an instrument for gaining control in the Arctic or over Greenland mistake what is essentially a slogan for a coherent, centrally-directed strategy. Still, while the slogan is heard less frequently these days, it has not yet fallen into obscurity. Under the right conditions, China might find it useful to defrost the Polar Silk Road.

Development of Arctic hydrocarbon projects has always been a priority for Russia. In addition to the Silk Road Fund, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has a 20 per cent stake in the Yamal LNG project, acquired in 2013. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and a CNPC subsidiary also acquired 10 per cent each of Arctic LNG 2 in 2019. Chinese banks provided credit for both projects, while a large share of the projects’ liquefaction modules was constructed by Chinese yards. However, the list of Russian proposals that failed to attract Chinese investment is equally long. CNPC walked away from offshore exploration in the Barents and Pechora Seas after assessing the risks, and Rosneft's invitation to join the vast Vostok Oil project has so far gone unanswered. The Power of Siberia-2 project likewise is still being negotiated despite Putin’s repeated assurances that Russia and China “have reached agreement on most of the deal’s parameters”.

From the Chinese perspective, the Polar Silk Road is more than a piggy bank for Russian Arctic plans. Beijing conceived it as a broader, international extension of the BRI, aimed at connecting Asian and European markets via an Arctic sea corridor. Europe is one of China’s largest export markets and the destination of the containerised, time-sensitive cargo, for which the shorter transit times through the Arctic routes could supposedly make more commercial sense. China’s shipping giant COSCO has conducted 56 voyages through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) between 2013 and 2021, mostly destined for ports in the European Union. After Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, COSCO stopped using the NSR and has yet to resume sailings.

Smaller Chinese companies have since begun to fill this void. NewNew Polar Shipping has opened container routes between Russian ports and China via the NSR. The company has also concluded a cooperation agreement with Rosatom, the Russian state enterprise that manages the Northern Sea Route and the nuclear icebreaker fleet. In 2024, the company launched an “Arctic Express Line” between Chinese ports and Arkhangelsk, which was described as adding “new meaning to the construction of a Polar Silk Road”. Another Chinese firm, Haijie (Sealegend) Shipping, conducted a container shipment from Ningbo to Felixstowe in the UK in 2025. That voyage represented the first international transit through the NSR between two non‑Russian ports since 2022. The company is planning eight such sailings during the 2026 season, explicitly presenting them as “starting a new chapter for the Polar Silk Road”. As of late July, six Chinese companies list 38 westbound Arctic voyages, excluding tankers, gas carriers, fishing and passenger vessels. These companies operate from some of China’s most important ports and have in common that they are relatively new, risk-tolerant companies with limited international footprints.

In short, Russia and China have divergent expectations for the Polar Silk Road. For China, the project was never meant to be a vehicle for bilateral cooperation with Russia, as the end goal for transit shipping is the European market. Russia has never fully embraced the term “Polar Silk Road”, which is never mentioned in communiqués after bilateral talks. Moscow and Beijing have nonetheless created a joint body on the NSR, a sub-commission under the Russia–China Commission for the Preparation of Regular Meetings between the Heads of Government, and have even approved a roadmap to expand shipping and establish a “sustainable transport corridor”. Despite this, the cooperation between the two countries on the Northern Sea Route remains icebound.

Strategy abroad, slogan at home

Analysts still cite the Polar Silk Road initiative as China’s strategic foray into the Arctic and a bid to reshape the future of Arctic shipping and economic development. For example, the US Department of Defense’s 2024 Arctic Strategy describes the Polar Silk Road as a tool for Beijing “to gain a footing in the Arctic by pursuing investments in infrastructure and natural resources, including in the territory of NATO Allies”. Such assessments tend to overstate the initiative’s achievements. Recent research finds that alarmist figures often count unsuccessful and proposed projects. Meanwhile, the Polar Silk Road, which prominently featured in the 14th Five-Year Plan, did not make it to the outline of the 15th Five‑Year Plan presented this March.

One possible explanation is Western pushback against the label. Projects marketed under the banner have repeatedly been blocked or shelved in Nordic countries: under Danish and American pressure, China Communications Construction Company withdrew its bid to build Greenland’s airports in 2019, and Chinese mining and infrastructure proposals elsewhere in the region have met a similar fate. Another reason could be the diminished relevance attached to the Polar Silk Road in China’s political economy. Since the pandemic, Beijing has trimmed the BRI towards smaller and less risky projects, while Western sanctions imposed after 2022 have made high-profile Arctic ventures with Russia potentially hazardous for China’s biggest players.

The Polar Silk Road is best understood as a political slogan rather than a master plan. As Cheng and Zeng propose, BRI initiatives are slogans that help mobilise China’s internal political apparatus. Chinese scholars noticed the importance of Arctic shipping routes long before the Polar Silk Road was launched. The National Development and Reform Commission folded it into the maritime silk road as a “blue economic passage”, which Xi then rebranded with a catchier title in Moscow. China’s Arctic policy white paper then assimilated it within China’s broader Arctic governance agenda.

Externally, the label has allowed China to frame cooperation with Russia when their interests align. Internally, some domestic actors in China remain enthusiastic about fitting their plans within the framework of the Polar Silk Road. This is because the underlying structural incentives that drive China’s interest in Arctic shipping, energy, science, and governance remain in place.

Provinces and port cities have promoted themselves as gateways to Arctic routes. For example, Kossa argues that China’s northeastern provinces, which traditionally cooperate with Russia, used this high-level slogan to promote their existing long-standing preferences. Landlocked Jilin, which had long pursued a strategy of “borrowing a port to go to the sea”, and coastal Liaoning, which had long promoted a “Northeast New Silk Road” out of Dalian, both could present their policies to Beijing as the specific implementation of the BRI. The enthusiasm around the Polar Silk Road united domestic actors with divergent interests, and as those interests changed, some actors dropped out.

Fears that the Polar Silk Road is an instrument for gaining control in the Arctic or over Greenland mistake what is essentially a slogan for a coherent, centrally-directed strategy. Still, while the slogan is heard less frequently these days, it has not yet fallen into obscurity. Under the right conditions, China might find it useful to defrost the Polar Silk Road.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Erdem Lamazhapov is a PhD research fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute and the University of Oslo. He has published on the origins of China’s Arctic policy and explored how China’s great power status and ambitions impact its engagement with the Arctic region. Image credit: Dmitriy Ryndin/Pexels.