The Arctic Sea melt tends to worsen throughout the 21
stcentury. If, on the one hand, it is seen as an environmental
catastrophe, on the other hand, it is also seen as an
economic advantage by its neighbors. As the melting takes
place, the more accessible the Arctic becomes, making
it viable to explore natural resources and to build and
consolidate a trade route capable of surpassing the current
trade routes connecting Asia and Europe, in terms of time
and savings. Thus, this work focuses on answering the
following question: how does the Arctic melting impact the
geoeconomy of international trade? Using the perspective
of geoeconomic theory, introduced and developed by
Edward Nicolae Luttwak, Robert Blackwill and Jennifer
Harris, this paper aims to conceptualize global warming,
compare current routes with the advantageous North
Sea route from data collection and to critically analyze
sino-russian cooperation in consolidating their ongoing
commercial maritime projects in the Arctic region.
