Ekaterina Serova on RBC-TV: Paradigms of Perception of the Northern Sea Route by Russia and China

On August 11, 2026, during the broadcast of the program «The Day. The Main News» on RBC-TV, Ekaterina Serova, Director of the International Department of the Project Office for Arctic Development (PORA), spoke about the key differences in how Russia and China perceive the Northern Sea Route, and why Russia is not ready to allow Chinese companies into its Arctic ports on their terms. According to Serova, for Russia the NSR remains a national transport artery, where transit is merely a bonus to a well-functioning resource-regional system, whereas China sees the route exclusively as a transit corridor. The expert also assessed the prospects for launching a year-round container line amid geopolitical instability. Below are the main points of her remarks (direct speech has been edited for clarity, with the full meaning preserved).

The perception of the Northern Sea Route in Russia and China is fundamentally different. For us, it is a national transport artery used for cabotage, liquid bulk, export, and transit shipments. For China, the NSR serves and will continue to serve exclusively a transit function.

We witnessed the first passage of a vessel from Ningbo, China, to Felixstowe, UK, via the Northern Sea Route. An attempt is now being made to launch a trial scheduled service (eight voyages with a fleet of seven container ships during the navigation window from August to October) and to transform the NSR from an experimental route into a timetable that can serve as the basis for a business model.

But it is important to understand: for Russia, transit is not an end in itself, but rather a function of geopolitics. We would like the NSR to work for the benefit of our country’s economy. To date, the share of international container transit in the total NSR volume remains at a few percent.

For over a century, the NSR has repeatedly shifted away from transit plans toward what was dictated by resources, weather conditions, and political imperatives. The main export corridors are laid precisely where extractive projects have emerged — Yamal LNG, Arctic LNG 2, and oil fields.

Asian countries remain the largest market for LNG, and China is objectively interested in expanding supplies of Russian energy resources. Launching a year-round container line via the NSR is a priority task for both the Intergovernmental Russian-Chinese Commission on Investment Cooperation and Rosatom as the main operator. The success of the NSR directly depends on the political and economic will of the participating countries and their readiness to work for the long haul.

The Northern Sea Route is a national transport artery, and its development is primarily linked to ensuring national security. We make it clear to our Chinese partners with whom we are entering into cooperation that priority is given to our country’s security and to preventing excessive economic presence of foreign players in the Arctic zone. It is telling that Chinese vessels still do not call at Russian Arctic ports — they pass in transit to their final destination.

Why is that? The reasons vary. Chinese shipowners do not trust the technologies used in Arctic ports because they are Russian and are unlikely to ever be replaced by Chinese ones. The sanctions factor also plays a role.

The logistics company Sea Legend Shipping, which has obtained the necessary permits for container shipping along the NSR, is a private and relatively young company. There are many such players in China. That is precisely why the choice of such an operator is revealing: this is a commercial entity capable of practically testing the route’s transit potential.

Amid the crisis in the Middle East and ongoing instability in global logistics, Sea Legend Shipping’s task is essentially to practically test the NSR as an additional, safer transport corridor: to assess how economically viable it is, how its infrastructure works, what organizational and navigational constraints arise, and, most importantly, how to build sustainable cooperation with the Russian side on mutually beneficial terms.

Interest is shown not only by private logistics companies. There are also state-owned ones that are already actively interested in performing dredging work in Arctic ports. At the same time, the Chinese say: we would be happy to join your project, but only on our terms — our investments, our technologies, our people, and we will use only the infrastructure we choose and trust. Russia has its own technologies, but lacks the funds for active development, and yet we are not letting the Chinese in.

This is precisely the main paradox of Russian-Chinese cooperation on the NSR: Russia continues to view the route as an internal transport system, China sees it as an international transit corridor, but achieving both goals requires the same outcome — a sustainable, predictable, and economically viable Northern Sea Route.