The Polar silk road in 280 characters

What is the Polar silk road? Why is it relevant and will it ever happen?

Shorter than Panama and Suez. Expensive. Low demand. Lack of icebreakers. Poor navigation data and sharing by fleet. Environmental damage. Oil spill risks. Black carbon emissions. Desolate means less search and rescue and supply resources. Russia reluctant to China dependency.

It’s ironic that climate change opens up the Northern sea route. It cuts the transportation distance, and potentially CO2 emissions, from East to West by several thousand kilometers (around 7,000 compared with the Suez canal). But the Polar silk road, as it’s coined by the Chinese, may be years away from realization.

Far from polar silk

Chen Minghui at the Academy of Ocean of China, recently wrote a piece that outlines the many hurdles ahead:

First of all, it is difficult to supply the ships along the route. Not many people live here. The coastal ports are far from developed to deal with large ships. Construction efficiency is poor, partly because the technical requirements are high.

There will be no return on investments in the short term because the ports can only be used short periods of the year.

Arctic shipping lanes do not yet provide navigational support for icebreakers and passing ships. Ships passing through need navigation data, seawater meteorological and hydrological data.

The Polar silk road must build a systematic big data system so that the fleet can share the data. At present, this kind of information is still lacking.

There are no support services such as navigational aids and navigation warnings. In the Russian Arctic, there are shortages of airports, ports, roads, and railways as well as icebreakers.

The high latitude and strong magnetic force of the Arctic, limit the functions of communication and navigation equipment.

Regulation and politics

Since there are no unified Arctic navigation rules, coastal states have to levy high escort fees. It is also difficult for merchant ships to achieve round-trip distribution, which seriously restricts the transportation efficiency and revenue.

The legal and policy environment for Arctic routes is also poor. So far, the Arctic has not yet developed a unified legally binding institutional arrangement.

Arctic international transport is no longer the strategic focus of Russia by 2035. The strategic focus is on resource development and is used to promote the development and utilization of shipping routes.

The Arctic holds 22 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

The Arctic Council countries have many different views on China’s participation in Arctic development. Denmark believes that “China has legitimate economic and scientific interests in the Arctic”, while the US and Canada believe that China’s move “threatens the sovereignty of Arctic countries”.

Military

As NATO’s military confrontation with Russia escalates, NATO members are constantly striving to improve their military combat capabilities in the Arctic. Russia believes that NATO’s move is intended to internationalize Arctic shipping lanes and squeeze out Russia’s dominance over Arctic shipping routes, especially the Northern sea route.

Russia is reluctant to use the concept of China’s “Polar silk road”. Academic papers published in Russia use the “Northern sea route”.

Russia may be worried about losing its dominance over the development of the Arctic region. On the one hand, Russia wants to use China’s capital, technology and huge energy consumption market to develop the Arctic region, on the other hand, it does not want to fall into a deep dependence on China.

Expensive, harmful silk with little demand

The Barents Observer points out that the Northern sea route is expensive, with high risk of environmental damage. And few shipping companies want to use the route.

The Mediterranean shipping company, the second largest container shipping company in the world, reaffirmed last year that it will not use the Northern sea route.

Environmental risks and damages are many. Black carbon particles from exhaust fume fall on snow, ice and glaciers. This reduces reflectivity and snow and ice melt accelerate. Noise disturbs marine mammals who rely on sound to communicate, navigate and hunt. Sound travels extremely long distances in these waters and it only takes a few ships to change the soundscape. When heavy fuel oil is spilled in cold polar waters, it breaks down even more slowly than other fossil fuels. There is currently no viable method to clean up oil from ice.

When Russian and Chinese proponents of the route highlight the shorter distance and waiting time compared with the Suez canal, they seem to ignore the great hurdles.

CO2 emissions from shipping is currently 2.5-3 per cent of global emissions. The Polar silk road is not an option for reducing it.

Cover photo: No, it’s not from the Arctic. It’s of a river taken when I was summer skiing with my kids up in the mountains in Norway in June this year.