When China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin meet, one theme surfaces with clockwork regularity: Arctic collaboration. In every joint statement issued during their state visits since February 2022, the Arctic is framed as a shared strategic priority – from the “limitless friendship” declaration in February 2022 to the follow-up encounters in March 2023, May 2024, and the summit with Xi Jinping in Moscow for the 80th anniversary of the Victory Day in 2025. Similar language has echoed through every round of annual intergovernmental consultations since 2018, with Arctic cooperation reaffirmed year after year.
What began as political signaling is now becoming reality – through joint drills in the Arctic Ocean and growing military-technological cooperation, new bilateral Arctic governance formats, and intensified use of Arctic shipping lanes on the Northern Sea Route. China and Russia’s Arctic engagement is set to accelerate.
Institutional Arctic Alignment
Moscow’s attitude toward Beijing’s polar ambitions has flipped. When China was granted observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013, Russia insisted on language safeguarding state sovereignty – a sign of unease. But Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 altered geopolitical dynamics in the Arctic.
While Russia held the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council from 2021 to 2023, the other seven member states suspended their participation in meetings on Russian territory. Amid this boycott, China’s Arctic envoy Gao Feng publicly sided with Moscow, warning that Beijing could not recognize an Arctic Council composed solely of the Arctic Seven, effectively rejecting the isolation of Russia.
Since then, a more structured form of cooperation has begun to take shape. In November 2024, the inaugural session of the Sino-Russian Arctic Waterway Subcommittee convened in St. Petersburg, under the broader framework of the regular China-Russia prime ministerial consultations. Far from a ceremonial meeting, the subcommittee is a standing institution, divided into three working groups that focus on shipping development, navigational safety, and polar shipbuilding and technology.
During its inaugural session, China’s Minister of Transport Liu Wei and Rosatom’s Director General reached what were described as “important consensuses,” though the details remain classified. Nevertheless, the establishment of such mechanisms and the formalization of cooperation reflect a clear and durable strategic intent.
The 2024 subcommittee built on a foundation of earlier, less formalized agreements. A March 2023 readout between China’s Ministry of Commerce and Russia’s Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic called for enhanced industrial and infrastructure. The agreement envisioned the establishment of reciprocal investment offices to help implement these goals.
Separately, the readout of a 2021 intergovernmental consultation mentioned a Sino-Russian cooperation roadmap for Russia’s Arctic regions and an April 2023 law enforcement agreement brought the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) and the China Coast Guard into closer contact. While the concrete outcomes of these accords remain opaque, they indicate a steady institutional layering that has shifted the partnership from rhetoric to emerging operational coordination – including in the security domain.
Joint Arctic Drills
From 2022 to 2024, China and Russia held 27 joint military exercises, among them 16 joint naval exercises, including a record seven in 2024 alone. Some of these drills included maneuvers in Arctic waters, such as Pacific Patrol 2024 and Ocean 2024. The latter patrol followed shortly after bombers from both militaries flew for the first time together near Alaska. All of those maneuvers signal China and Russia’s expanding military coordination in Arctic-adjacent regions.
According to Russian Admiral Roman Tolok, the Pacific Patrol exercises will become an annual event. While not publicly framed as Arctic-focused, it is reasonable to expect that future iterations may rotate even more frequently across different Arctic maritime zones. As Alexander Perendzhiev, an associate professor at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, highlighted, these drills underline Russia’s determination – alongside China – to defend the Northern Sea Route with its military.
These developments reflect a broader, long-standing trajectory of military cooperation. According to data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, China and Russia have conducted over 110 joint military exercises since 2003, with activity accelerating significantly after 2022. This intensification of operational coordination has gone hand-in-hand with deeper military-technical ties.
The Sino-Russian Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation (MTC), created in 1992 and traditionally co-chaired by the Russian defense minister and a vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC), has long served as the main platform for arms sales and technology transfers. In 2013, both states signed an agreement to co-produce four Lada-class attack submarines – two built in Russia, two in China – which demonstrated a willingness to share sensitive naval technology.
Many of the concrete deliverables remain secret. As Russian analyst Alexander Gabuev noted, Moscow and Beijing ceased publicly disclosing their military contracts after the U.S. Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in 2017.
Full MTC sessions were interrupted after the outbreak of COVID-19. However, the same principal actors still meet. In mid-October 2024, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov visited Beijing for talks with his counterpart Dong Jun and, crucially, with CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia – the very official who is in charge of MTC meetings on China’s side. Both sides spoke of “fruitful work” and unnamed “significant decisions,” keeping details deliberately vague. The continued engagement of the same high-ranking figures – despite the absence of the former MTC label – suggests that military-technical ties are not ending, but quietly evolving.
Arctic Trade Corridors
New transport corridors also show how far the Sino-Russian Arctic cooperation has progressed. In summer 2023, the Chinese logistics company NewNew Shipping Line opened a seasonal, maritime-only Northern Sea Route (NSR) container service linking Shanghai with St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Arkhangelsk. In 2024, the company also established “Arctic Express No. 1,” a transport corridor that ships from Shanghai and Ningbo to Arkhangelsk, where cargo transfers to rail for the final leg to Moscow.
These routes significantly reduce transit times between China and Europe. For example, the shipping distance from Shanghai to Hamburg drops from approximately 18,709 km via the Suez Canal to 14,440 km via the Arctic – an estimated 23 percent reduction. Compared to the Cape of Good Hope route (26,022 km), the distance is shortened by roughly 45 percent.
However, transit volumes on the NSR remain far below official projections. In 2024, total cargo volume reached 37.9 million tonnes, up by just 1.6 million tonnes from 2023. This was less than half of Putin’s long-standing target of 80 million tonnes by 2024, as outlined in multiple strategic planning documents. Nevertheless, one key metric did surge: Rosatom counted 92 full NSR transits, which together carried over 3 million tonnes of cargo – a nearly 50 percent increase from the previous year, despite a shortened navigation season caused by unusually heavy sea ice.
This sea ice, which often renders the RSE impassable, remains a major obstacle. However, both countries are investing significant effort and resources to overcome this challenge. Russia is expanding its fleet of Project 22220 icebreakers. Most recently, it launched the Yakutiya and the Chukotka, with the Leningrad and the Stalingrad under construction. Meanwhile, China is also preparing to construct a new generation of icebreakers, following the Xuelong 2, to supplement its growing Arctic ambitions. These efforts, in combination with the melting ice will facilitate shipping on the Northern Sea Route in the future.
Accelerated Expansion
Taken together, recent developments in the military, logistical, diplomatic, and intergovernmental realms suggest that the prerequisites for a rapid expansion of China-Russia Arctic cooperation are already in place. If sea ice decline continues on its current trajectory, the Northern Sea Route could by 2040 carry a reliable, year-round flow of goods, delivering sizable cargo volume.
Local Russian leaders already anticipate this future. In April 2025, Vologda Governor Georgy Filimonov proposed establishing a permanent container corridor via Arkhangelsk to China, aimed at exporting timber, metallurgical, chemical, and agricultural goods. Over time, more of these exports could also reach major trading partners such as India, Mexico, and Brazil.
It is entirely plausible that such proposals will eventually be realized. The Arctic ice is melting – and with it, the notion that Sino-Russian Arctic cooperation is superficial. What remains is a deepening alignment with lasting geopolitical weight.