The Northeast Passage overlaps the Northern Sea Routh through Russian waters, which is most of its length. It’s the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Traversing along the northern coast of Siberia, it cuts travel time from China to Europe by at least 12 days compared to the Suez route.
While the commercial advantages are obvious, the strategic importance of that route lies in the fact that ‘both China and Japan import 80% of their oil through the Strait of Malacca’. The so-called ‘Malacca dilemma’ of a potential U.S. naval blockade of the straits in a conflict makes establishing the Arctic alternative all the more attractive.
The Malacca dilemma is real and America has the power to interrupt Chinese sea trade well away from China where the bulk of Chinese military power is. Perhaps American naval power can't get too close to China at first, but America can make sure no civilian shipping gets there, too.
But how does an Arctic shipping route fix that strategic vulnerability?
Aside from the question of whether Russia is truly a friend who would secure Chinese shipping routes along the north coast of Russia, there is another problem.
The Arctic Sea route has to pass through the the Bering Strait between America and Russia and then go through the Bering Sea, and then go through the first island chain from Japan down to the Philippines to reach China.
How does Chinese shipping run that gauntlet?
By my look at a map, the Arctic route is actually worse than the Indian Ocean route for Chinese civilian shipping security because the Arctic map conveniently runs past American bases in Alaska. And then past American forces all the way to China.
At least the existing Malacca dilemma only involves America and India but not Russia. Is giving America and Russia but not India the chance to interfere with Chinese trade really worth this effort?
That is the end result of Chinese grand strategy?
