China on Top of the World

[Randy W]

Chinese cargo ship reaches Rotterdam via Arctic route

 

The “Yong Sheng” container ship has become the first Chinese commercial vessel to reach Europe after taking the arctic route north of Russia.

It took 33 days to reach the Dutch port of Rotterdam. The traditional route via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean takes 48 days.

The northeast passage north of Russia and through the Bering Straits is becoming more accessible as the polar ice cap melts.

[Randy W]

from the NYTimes

 

Latest Arena for China’s Growing Global Ambitions: The Arctic

 

 

 

For China, the retreating ice potentially offers two big prizes: new sources of energy and a faster shipping route across the top of the world. To that end, the country is cultivating deeper ties with Russia.

More than 3,000 miles from home, Chinese crews have been drilling for gas beneath the frigid waters of the Kara Sea off Russia’s northern coast. Every summer for the last five years, Chinese cargo ships have maneuvered through the ice packs off Russia’s shores — a new passage that officials in Beijing like to call the Polar Silk Road. And in Shanghai, Chinese shipbuilders recently launched the country’s second icebreaker, the Snow Dragon 2.

China’s ambitions in the Far North, said Aleksi Harkonen, Finland’s ambassador for Arctic affairs, mirror its ambitions everywhere else. “It’s after global influence,” he said, “including in the Arctic.”

The China-Russia partnership advances both countries’ agendas in the region, at least for now. It also comes against a background of rising hostilities between China and the United States over issues like trade, territorial claims and allegations of espionage.

That tension is spilling over into the Arctic.

. . .

But Beijing has much to gain, strategically, in a warming Arctic, and it is focused on the long game. Wealthy and ambitious, it can afford to be.

China is trying to pour money into nearly every Arctic country. It has invested billions into extracting energy from beneath the permafrost on the Yamal Peninsula in northern Russia. It is drilling for gas in Russian waters alongside the Russian company Gazprom. It is prospecting for minerals in Greenland. And its telecommunications giant is eager to partner with a Finnish company that wants to lay a huge new undersea internet cable to connect Northern Europe with Asia.

. . .

“Arctic countries can’t say no to investments. That’s clear,” said Mr. Harkonen, the Finnish diplomat. “We want to be sure we know what China is after.”

In addition, Chinese ships are sailing the Northern Sea Route. The state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company has sent its cargo vessels across the Arctic multiple times over the last five years, and is planning more voyages this summer.

. . .

It is an increasingly vital relationship for both countries. Russia needs Chinese investment to extract the natural resources under the permafrost and monetize its long Arctic coast, especially after the United States imposed sanctions over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

And so, Russia’s onetime wariness of competition in the Arctic has given way to a new openness with China.

“Though Russia and China would be natural competitors for Arctic resources and influence, they have started cooperation knowing that only together they can outcompete the West,” said Agnia Grigas, an energy expert in Washington and author of a recent book on natural gas and geopolitics. “China’s need for energy sources and Russia’s economic dependence on fossil fuel exports depends on this.”

President Vladimir Putin has met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, more than any other foreign leader. Mr. Putin is personally cultivating investments from Chinese companies in energy and transport infrastructure across his country’s vast Arctic expanse.