Why China Is All-In On A ‘Polar Silk Road’

How’s this for an icebreaker?

In a trade war running so hot it’s thawing shipping lanes across the Arctic, China is preparing to deploy a world-class, nuclear-powered icebreaking vessel in a move that could reshape the balance of power in the frozen tundra, according to a recent Financial Times feature. If you’ve found yourself still in search of an answer for why the US has grown so interested in Greenland, this may well be it.

Melting Point

Designed by the state-run 708 Research Institute and unveiled as a conceptual design in December, China’s arctic icebreaker is supposedly capable of cracking through ice floes 2.5 meters thick. Its purpose? As outlined in China’s 2018 plans to develop a “Polar Silk Road,” the ship will be used to capitalize on melting ice caps to secure new shipping lanes through the arctic (China has claimed the icebreaker will serve as a “multirole” cargo and polar tourism ship, though expert analysts also told the FT it will no doubt serve another role for China’s military ambitions).

But even just developing new shipping lanes would be a big deal for the Middle Kingdom, which currently charts courses through NATO-controlled waters to deliver exports to Europe. Soon, the country might cut a course over the top of the globe — but whether or not it’s a shortcut or just a frosty scenic route seems a little up for debate:

• By using the Arctic route rather than the traditional course through the Suez Canal, voyages could be reduced by as much as 40%, one 708 Research Institute analyst recently told the state-run publication China Daily.
• That could work for exporters in the country’s northern region, but Inge Bekkevold, a senior fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told the FT that any exporters out of the country’s southern manufacturing heartland will still likely find it cheaper to sail through the Red Sea into the Mediterranean Sea before arriving at ports in Greece.

Ship Shot: Either way, the icebreaker is yet another flex of China’s shipmaking prowess, which amounts to around 232 times the shipmaking capacity of the US, the US Navy said last year. That shipmaking prowess became a little more singular in 2025, literally, when a $16 billion merger reunified China’s two top shipmaking companies: the not-so-cleverly named China State Shipbuilding Company and China Shipbuilding Industry, which were previously split by state forces in 1999 in the name of competition. Now, the unified company is building the icebreaker.