Strait of Hormuz chaos has incentivized China to use an alternative trade route: a 3,400 mile frozen Arctic channel dubbed the ‘Ice Silk Road’

The ongoing trade disruptions from the Iran war have enabled China to gain a trade edge, but it requires shipping vessels to brave the Arctic.

On Saturday, the Chinese container shipping company Sea Legend Line launched its first regular shipping route through the Arctic, traveling a route that’s more than 3,400 miles long along the northern coast of Russia.

The vessel went from China’s industrial hub Ningbo—located about halfway between Shanghai and Beijing—all the way to the U.K.’s Felixstowe, about 70 miles north of London.

Dubbed the “Ice Silk Road,” the route takes about 20 days to complete, which is just half the shipping time of the route that passes south through the Suez Canal.

Countries have scrambled to find alternative trade routes after the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz following U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in February.

Additional disruptions caused by continued Houthi threats to the Bab al-Mandab Strait into the Red Sea have subsequently disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

This has caused longer transit times as ships look for alternative routes, driving up fuel and insurance costs, as well as unsettling supply chains.

U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even floated the idea of a more permanent global shift away from the Strait of Hormuz as a result of the trade uncertainty that has hiked energy prices and shaken supply chains.

It seems China may have found a way to dodge this.

The country first took interest in the northern sea route (NSR) more than a decade ago in 2013, when Yong Shenge, a Chinese cargo ship, became the first Chinese ship to ever reach Europe on the route.

However, the route has remained largely inaccessible because of the volume of sea-ice in the area.

Global climate change creates a new trade route Global climate change may have also altered China’s fortune, as warmer temperatures in the Arctic have transformed the NSR from a course only accessible in the warmest months to one traversable for a substantial portion of the year.

While there was a 20-year slowdown in the rate at which sea-ice melted in the Arctic, that ended last year as new research from the University of Southampton shows melting levels continuing to increase.