China’s Ice Silk Road: Why Being First Through the Arctic Matters

Asad Mirza Melting ice and a burning Middle East have handed China a new trade lane – and a head start. As Beijing turns the Northern Sea Route into a working shipping business, it is quietly redrawing the map of who controls global commerce, leaving India and others scrambling to catch up. Every great trade route in history has rewarded whoever mapped, secured and normalised it first – Venice on the spice routes, Britain on Suez and the United States on the post-war Pacific. China now wants that role in the Arctic, and it has moved with unusual speed to…