Chinese research submarines for the first time traveled thousands of feet beneath the Arctic ice this summer, a technical feat with chilling military and commercial implications for the US and its allies.
The Chinese undersea expeditions offer fresh evidence of a growing threat from China in the High North. This year, Chinese military and research vessels have operated around Alaska’s Arctic waters in unprecedented numbers.
For China, mastery of Arctic travel could yield valuable data about the natural resources awaiting below melting ice caps, significantly reduce travel time for commercial shipping and position nuclear-armed submarines closer to potential targets, including the US. Chinese vessels on research missions often give cover to military purposes.
China has declared itself a “near-Arctic power.
Beijing views future sea routes through the High North as a shortcut for global commerce — a Polar Silk Road. China this summer sent a cargo ship to the Polish port of Gdansk by skirting the North Pole, a route twice as fast as travel times using the Suez Canal. Chinese officials have said they plan to expand trans-Arctic cargo traffic with Russia, particularly imports of LNG.
During the Cold War, the Arctic marked a front line dividing NATO members and Moscow. Its waters offered Russia gateways to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which the US and its allies closely patrolled until the early 1990s — and are now policing again.
Arctic waters provide a military advantage because of the North Pole’s proximity to other nations. The US in 1959 sent the world’s third nuclear submarine there to pop up from under ice, delivering a potent warning to the Kremlin. Moscow reciprocated in 1962. Today, the two rivals are again dispatching submarines on Arctic exercises.
Tensions over the High North, renewed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are being amplified by China’s reach. The US and its allies expect Beijing will be able to send armed submarines to the North Pole within a few years. China already has military-grade surface vessels in the Arctic region while expanding its fleet of ice-breaking ships.
The US and allies are training more Arctic troops in response to new dangers. They have beefed up sub-hunting patrols out of Iceland and other locations. President Trump struck a shipbuilding deal with Finland to expand the US icebreaker fleet and has pressured Denmark into expanding defenses on and around Greenland.
In Dec NATO members Denmark, Sweden and Finland were put under the alliance’s Atlantic and Arctic command to bolster the defense of the High North.
Chinese and Russian military planes last year flew patrols near Alaska for the first time, with Chinese long-range bombers operating from a Russian air base. Such cooperation not only gives China new abilities to strike North America but raises the prospect of a joint attack by America’s most powerful adversaries.
China in 2015 updated its national-security law to include defending national interests in polar regions, seeking unfettered access to new sea lanes and resources. There is much evidence that China’s goal is to conduct naval operations in the Arctic Ocean.
Beijing, in addition to staging joint air patrols with Russia, is now sailing coast guard vessels that resemble frigates near the Alaska coast.
“They’re basically warships, but they’re painted white.”
Joint patrols with Russian navy ships indicate China’s aim is gaining military advantage, not coastal security. When more ice melts along international waterways in the High North, the same shortcuts used by commercial vessels could speed China’s navy into the Atlantic.
Arctic travel by Beijing’s commercial and scientific vessels benefits China’s navy by gaining experience and data about a region relatively new to its military leaders. China’s policies merge its civilian and military spheres, aiming to strengthen its armed forces through collaboration with universities, research
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