China is preparing to inaugurate its first regular container shipping service along the Arctic route between its ports and those of Western Europe with the 4,890 teu Istanbul Bridge. The maiden voyage will depart from Qingdao on 20 September 2025, calling at Shanghai and Ningbo Zhoushan before sailing through the Arctic Ocean to reach Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Gdansk.
According to Haijie Shipping Company, which is branding the service as the China-Europe Arctic Express, the journey will take only eighteen days, compared with 40 days on the Suez route and 50 via the Cape of Good Hope. The schedule is even faster than the average rail transit between China and Europe, which typically takes around 25 days.
The Arctic route, however, is not without constraints. Regular container services can only operate during a limited seasonal window, currently from July to November. For 2025 Haijie has announced just a single voyage, making the initiative essentially experimental for now. Another limiting factor is ship size, as the conditions and requirements of Arctic navigation do not allow the use of very large container vessels.
The new service falls within the broader framework of Sino-Russian cooperation along the so-called Polar Silk Road. Russia, through state-owned Rosatom, manages the Arctic route’s infrastructure and is forecasting a 50% increase in foreign vessel transits in 2025. In 2024, traffic on this corridor reached 37.9 million tonnes of cargo, setting a new record with 92 completed transit voyages. Growing cooperation between China and Russia also includes the development of satellite ice-tracking systems and the expansion of Arctic port infrastructure.
Despite these advances, the Arctic route is not yet competitive with traditional corridors. Forecasts, however, point to significant growth in the years ahead. Increasing traffic will require investment in specialised vessels, polar navigation technologies and coastal infrastructure. Environmental concerns have also emerged, as the Arctic is a fragile ecosystem. The Clean Arctic Alliance has raised three key issues: carbon emissions, acoustic pollution disturbing marine life, and the heightened risk of spills in a region where emergency response is extremely challenging.
Haijie Shipping Company was established in Singapore in 2022 and operates from Shanghai. It specialises in container transport, focusing on trades between East Asia, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and major North African ports. The company works closely with Sea Legend Shipping and Safetrans Line, both experienced in the Russian market, to support its Arctic services. Its corporate structure also includes Haijie Ship Management, registered in the United Kingdom in October 2022, which is responsible for vessel management and maintenance.
