Asia and the Arctic: Between Ambitions and the Russian Factor
On 11 October, the container ship PanStar Acro, operated by the South Korean company PanStar, returned to the port of Busan, completing the first experimental commercial voyage backed by the Seoul Government along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the route that runs along Russia’s Arctic coastline. Having departed on 22 August, the ship reached Felixstowe, in the United Kingdom, in 21 days, then calling at Rotterdam and Gdańsk before sailing back along the same route, for a total voyage of 50 days. The voyage was exploratory in nature and the ship, with a maximum capacity of 2,758 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), the unit of measurement equivalent to a twenty-foot container, sailed with 837 TEU on board, around 30% of its capacity, including about a hundred empty containers. The data collected on costs, fuel consumption, safety and transit times will be used by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries to assess the launch of a regular service between Korea and Europe by 2030.
According to Seoul’s estimates, the Arctic route would shorten the distance by around 35% compared with Suez, with a consequent reduction in fuel consumption and costs. The NSR therefore offers several advantages that could make it attractive, and not only for South Korea. As proof of this, also in August,** the Chinese company Sea Legend launched** from Ningbo, a port south of Shanghai, a regular container service on the same route, while other countries such as Japan, Vietnam and India are looking at the Arctic with growing attention. The PanStar Acro’s voyage therefore reflects a broader Asian interest, which varies in its motivations and level of commitment.
South Korea has turned its interest in the NSR into a genuine state strategy. Indeed, the Government of Lee Jae-myung has included the development of the Arctic route among the 123 national tasks of its mandate and, in the draft budget for 2026, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has allocated to related initiatives around €363 million, an increase of 23.4% on the previous year. The largest share, around €305 million, has been earmarked for the expansion of the port of Busan, while funding for polar research and technologies has risen from €5 million in 2025 to €45 million in 2026. The budget also funds the development of the first South Korean-flagged container ship able to navigate through ice, known as ice-class, with the aim of operating it on the route by January 2030. The financial commitment is accompanied by an institutional reorganisation centred on Busan, designated the country’s “maritime capital”. In November 2025, the National Assembly passed a special law funding the relocation of public bodies and maritime companies to the city. The Ministry led by example, moving its headquarters there on 23 December and setting up a unit dedicated to the Arctic route, staffed by personnel from ten ministries. Several shipping companies have followed suit, including HMM, the country’s largest, which in May 2026 approved the transfer of its registered office from Seoul. The South Korean strategy thus aims to make Busan, already one of the world’s leading transshipment hubs, the last Asian port of call on the route to Europe.
Compared with Seoul, Beijing has been looking at the Arctic for more than a decade. As early as 2013, COSCO’s Yong Sheng became the first Chinese merchant ship to reach Europe via the NSR, connecting Dalian, the main port of north-eastern China, with Rotterdam. In the following years the company stepped up its experimental voyages, reaching eight crossings in 2018 alone. In January of the same year, China’s first White Paper on the Arctic defined the country as a “near-Arctic state” and launched the Polar Silk Road as an extension of the Belt and Road Initiative, encouraging national companies to undertake commercial trial voyages. In recent years the call has been taken up by companies such as NewNew Shipping and Sea Legend, which have turned the NSR mainly into a corridor between China and European Russia. In 2025, of the 15 container ship transits along the Arctic route, 14 originated in or were bound for China, 13 of them between Chinese ports and St Petersburg, Arkhangelsk or Kaliningrad. The exception was the voyage of Sea Legend’s Istanbul Bridge, which in October 2025 completed the first direct container link between China and the United Kingdom, reaching Felixstowe in 20 days, compared with the 40-50 needed via Suez or the Cape of Good Hope. Since 15 August 2026, the same company has operated the first weekly container service between China and Europe along the route.
Japan does not use the NSR for its own trade, as shown by the absence in 2025 of transits to or from Japanese ports, but it is interested in the route for energy reasons. Indeed, through the company Mitsui and the state agency JOGMEC, Tokyo holds 10% of Arctic LNG 2, the Russian liquefied natural gas plant on the Gydan Peninsula, in Arctic Siberia. Japan is expected to receive from this project around 2 million tonnes a year, but US sanctions have severely hampered deliveries. In June 2026, however, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced for 2027 the first review of the national Arctic policy since 2015, with the aim of strengthening the country’s presence in resource development and in the exploration of sea routes. At the heart of the review will be the Mirai II, Japan’s first icebreaking research vessel for the Arctic, which will enter service by March 2027 and will make it possible to study ice conditions along potential routes.
Meanwhile, India and Vietnam look at the NSR mainly through cooperation with Moscow. In July 2024, New Delhi and Russia set up a joint working group on Arctic navigation and, at the December 2025 summit, signed a memorandum on training Indian seafarers for polar waters. Vietnam, for its part, signed a maritime cooperation plan with Russia until 2030 in May 2026, which also provides for joint use of the route. In both cases, however, these are still framework agreements and in 2025 no transit called at Indian or Vietnamese ports.
Singapore, finally, is one of the Asian countries most exposed to the development of the NSR. An observer in the Arctic Council since 2013, the city-state could see a reduction in the traffic passing through the Strait of Malacca, on which its role as a hub is based, although the seasonality of the route and its dependence on Russian icebreakers limit the competition for now.
Beyond national strategies, the data currently scale back the NSR’s appeal. The route remains navigable for only a few months a year, around four and a half in 2025, and volumes are marginal. Even Sea Legend’s weekly service carries less than 0.5% of the containers shipped each week between Asia and Northern Europe, while Chinese traffic along the route connects almost exclusively Russian ports. Commercial demand still appears weak, as shown by the PanStar Acro’s own voyage, which, against an initial target of around 1,300 TEU, loaded only 837. It is no coincidence that the major Western shipping companies, such as MSC, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd, have pledged to avoid Arctic routes, for environmental and political reasons as well.
It is precisely the Russian factor that weighs most heavily on Asian strategies. The NSR runs along the coast of Russia, which controls access to it through Rosatom, responsible for navigation permits and the icebreaker fleet. Using the route therefore means depending on Moscow, with different effects from country to country. For Beijing and New Delhi, which have maintained significant ties with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, the route is an opportunity to deepen existing cooperation. For Seoul and Tokyo, on the other hand, it is a dilemma, as economic interest clashes with alignment with Western allies and with the sanctions regime, which has already curbed Japan’s participation in Arctic LNG 2.
Looking ahead, the tensions that made the Hormuz and Red Sea routes less safe in 2026 could accelerate choices that costs alone would not yet justify. It is likely that 2030 will become a decisive turning point, with Korea ready to operate its own ice-class ship and China intent on consolidating the lead it has gained. It cannot, therefore, be ruled out that the NSR will turn from an experimental corridor into an arena of competition between Asian hubs, starting with Busan and Chinese ports.