Sea Legend, a Chinese shipping company, recently announced that it is launching a regular container service between China and Europe via the Arctic. The announcement follows a trial voyage in 2025, during which a container ship travelled from the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan in eastern China to Felixstowe in the UK in 20 days.
This will not have gone unnoticed in the West. While the war in Iran has not halted shipping through the Suez Canal, it has sharply increased risks around the Red Sea, complicating voyages between Europe and Asia. The Arctic’s Northern Sea Route, which can shorten voyages by up to 40%, could offer a solution. However, several obstacles remain.
The Northern Sea Route has captured policymakers’ imaginations for centuries. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Russia was unable to take Japan by surprise using the frozen waters of Siberia. Instead, its Baltic Fleet sailed around southern Africa and, crossing the Indian Ocean towards East Asia, was destroyed by the Japanese Navy.
Historical background
With this in mind, Soviet planners began surveying Russia’s northern coastline after the 1917 revolution. The Soviets came to see the route as essential to industrial expansion in northern Russia and, as the Cold War began after 1945, vital to the construction of military facilities.
As Cold War tensions eased, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in a 1987 speech that the passage be opened to foreign ships for the first time. Soon afterwards, the International Northern Sea Route Programme – a partnership between Japanese, Norwegian and Russian institutions – sought to create a scientific and technical knowledge base to inform commercial shipping in the region.
The programme’s findings were clear: despite its potential, the Northern Sea Route faced serious physical and technical bottlenecks. Shallow straits along the route’s eastern sections and drifting ice led to size restrictions on the ships able to use it.
At the time, estimates suggested that ships would need a capacity of around 20,000 – 50,000 tonnes, a measure of the maximum weight a vessel can safely carry. That figure was significantly lower than the 70,000 to 80,000-tonne container ships introduced on other global routes in the late 1990s.
Climate change
Over the past 30 years, however, climate change has had a profound impact on the Arctic. Temperatures there have risen at nearly three times the global average, and scientists estimate that the Arctic Ocean could see its first ice-free day as early as 2030.
This is catastrophic for Arctic wildlife, infrastructure, the global climate and sea levels, as well as for the way of life of the region’s 400,000 to 500,000 Indigenous residents. Yet several countries are drawn to a more ‘open’ Northern Sea Route.
China, Japan and South Korea have referred to using the Northern Sea Route in their official Arctic policies. Each is also capable of building the icebreakers currently needed to navigate the Arctic – something the US has struggled to do in recent years, after decades of declining American shipbuilding capacity.
Earlier in 2026, South Korea passed ambitious legislation to turn one of its ports, Busan, into a major Arctic hub. On 19 August, it also announced plans to test the route using a container ship in September. This caused some unease among European diplomats, because such a trial would involve coordination with the Russian authorities.
Strategic importance
China has been the most proactive non-Arctic country in developments related to the Northern Sea Route. For Beijing, the route offers a critical alternative to the Strait of Malacca. China currently relies on the strait for around 80% of its imported oil and a huge share of its trade, making it a major strategic vulnerability.
In 2018, China introduced the ‘Polar Silk Road’ initiative, which is linked to the vast ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. After dozens of trial voyages by Chinese ships, mainly between China and Russia, Sea Legend’s launch of the route marks a turning point from one-off trial voyages to regular services to Europe.
Japan also regards the Arctic passage as a vital energy shortcut. Deep-water ports on the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu are geographically well placed to serve as major entry points for liquefied natural gas from the Arctic. Japan, however, takes a much more cautious approach than its neighbours, reflecting its historically cool relations with Russia.
Obstacles
Several operational and economic obstacles stand in the way of the Arctic becoming a widely accepted alternative to conventional shipping routes.
For now, the Northern Sea Route remains open only during a narrow window in late summer, with ice conditions and weather varying dramatically from year to year. Ships themselves require reinforced hulls, specialist crews and permits. Russian icebreaker escorts are a legal requirement along part of the Northern Sea Route.
At the same time, ships using the route face high insurance premiums, partly because emergency infrastructure is limited if something goes wrong. While climate change is expected to ease some of these operational constraints, it will not eliminate the region’s inherent risks entirely.
Then there is the issue of reputation. The connection with Russia is a key reason for Europe’s absence from these developments. As a result, the Northern Sea Route remains less an alternative to Suez than a seasonal gamble – defined as much by geopolitical ice as by physical ice.
* PhD in Regional Studies at the University of Oxford. From Oxford Geopolitica.