The first transit voyage from China to Europe took place via the Northern Sea Route, a trans-Arctic route that halved cargo delivery time compared to traditional routes.

The Northern Sea Road or the strategic awakening of China and Russia

Since September 2025, a silent revolution has been underway in the icy waters of the Far North. A Chinese ship, which left the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan on September 22, reached Russia via the Northern Sea Road, passing through the Russian-controlled Arctic ice (from the Barents Sea to the Bering Sea) before reaching Europe. This road, which seemed utopian ten years ago, is now a geopolitical reality: Beijing and Moscow have opened a strategic corridor that bypasses the traditional straits under American surveillance. In a single voyage, China has demonstrated that it is now possible to trade without passing through the channels of Western hegemony.

What is at stake here is more than a simple technological feat. It is a shift in the architecture of global power. By appropriating the Northern Sea Road, China and Russia are redrawing the maps of globalization. Where Washington and its NATO allies saw a marginal, dangerous, and unproductive space, Moscow and Beijing have seen a strategic highway to the future. This corridor, nearly 6,000 kilometers long, reduces the transit time between Asia and Europe by nearly 40%. According to the Russian company Rosatom, a Chinese ship crossed this road to the United Kingdom (Port of Felixstowe) in October 2025 after departing from Ningbo on September 23 (scheduled takeoff), in just 20 days. This is said to mean distance savings of 7,000 to 10,000 km, a significant time saving compared to the Suez crossing or the Cape of Good Hope. In other words, Russia and China have just invented a shortcut to multipolarity.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has convinced itself that the sea........

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