New Trade Path Bypasses US Control

Recently, China and Russia reached an agreement on opening an Arctic route. According to the agreement, Chinese cargo ships will sail north from Russia’s Bering Strait through the Arctic to Europe.

Russia will provide nuclear-powered icebreakers to help Chinese cargo ships cross the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. The Arctic route will help China bypass the waterways controlled by Western countries led by the United States, thereby opening up a freight route from China to Europe.

For a long time, forces led by the United States and NATO have been using maritime power to control the world’s major waterways to control world trade. In particular, the US Navy has long controlled the Strait of Malacca, which is extremely unfavorable for Chinese goods to go to Europe.

As a major manufacturing country, China needs to transport the goods produced by its huge production capacity to all parts of the world, especially European countries. Because European countries generally have strong consumption capacity, Europe is the main sales destination for Chinese goods.

In addition to Europe, China has also explored markets in Africa, Latin America, and other countries to mitigate the risks of relying solely on the European market. However, due to the relatively underdeveloped economies of these countries, their spending power lags far behind that of Europe. Therefore, Europe is currently the second-largest market for Chinese goods, second only to the United States.

To ensure smooth access to Chinese goods in Europe, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, which primarily involves building three trade routes to Europe.

• The northern route traverses Russia, Poland, and Germany to reach the heart of Europe.

• The central route passes through western China, Iran, and ultimately Europe.

• The southern route, known as the Maritime Silk Road, traverses the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal to reach the Mediterranean and Italy.

The United States will certainly not sit idly by and watch China and Europe develop trade to strengthen China’s manufacturing industry. Therefore, the United States has used various means to try to disrupt China’s three trade routes.

If the United States sits back and watches China and Europe develop trade, then the United States will be gradually marginalized by the Eurasian continent and become a poor country like Brazil and Argentina. This is the fundamental reason and purpose of the United States’ crackdown on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

On the northern front, during the Democratic Party’s rule, the United States planned the Russo-Ukrainian war, blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, triggered tensions between Russia and Eastern Europe, and blocked Chinese goods from reaching Europe from Russia.

On the central line, the United States and Israel continue to attack Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” in the Middle East. With the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas “war” on October 7, 2023, the Yemeni Houthi armed forces continued to attack British and American merchant ships in the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians, resulting in the obstruction of the Red Sea route.

The fundamental purpose of the United States’ attack on Iran is to block the central trade route of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

In the south, the United States has instigated the Philippines to create tension in the South China Sea, turning it into a potential powder keg for military conflict. At the same time, the US Navy has strengthened its blockade of the Malacca Strait in an attempt to strangle China’s trade routes from the sea.

The Arctic route was born in this context.

Due to its own interests and the need to maintain its hegemony, the United States has been pursuing and blocking China’s Belt and Road Initiative. To cope with the suppression of the United States, China has also used the Arctic route as an effective response.

With the Arctic route, China can bypass the heavily guarded ocean channels of the United States and the US blockade on land, and use the Arctic to smoothly transport goods to Europe, thus escaping the control of the United States. This is the fundamental reason why China and Russia cooperate to develop the Arctic.

Of course, the United States also sees the important strategic value of the Arctic. Since Trump was elected as the US president, he has been trying to control Canada and Greenland so that he can exert influence on the Arctic.

As long as the United States controls Canada or Greenland, it can use these two places as springboards to threaten, blockade and encircle China and Russia’s Arctic routes, thereby achieving the United States’ sinister intention of completely blocking China’s manufacturing in the Arctic.

More importantly, if a full-scale war breaks out between China and the United States in the future, China’s nuclear missiles can also use the Arctic to quickly and accurately strike the United States and Canada, and can also directly break through the US anti-nuclear missile system set up in the Pacific.

Therefore, the battle between China, Russia and the United States in the Arctic has just begun.