Russian state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom and Chinese shipping company Hainan Yangpu NewNew Shipping announced in 2024 that they would cooperate on operating an all-year-round container shipping route through the Arctic. Since then, shipping interruptions at flashpoints from the Panama Canal to the Red Sea have thrown the global economy into turmoil. Worse, increasing military and technological collaboration between Beijing and Moscow has escalated the security threats facing the United States and its allies.
To counter this cooperation, the United States should consider working with its Canadian allies to open and maintain an equivalent shipping route — an “Ice Canal” across the Northwest Passage — to bolster their commercial and strategic presence in the region.
