BSR Policy Briefing 4/2026

Following over forty years of fast-paced growth, China’s economic footprint is felt across the globe. Driven by growing demand of raw materials, energy and new markets for its products, the economic expansion has pushed China’s economic and security interests outward: first toward the far seas and distant continents, and most recently toward what the Chinese leadership defines as “new strategic frontiers” (战略新疆域) – the last remaining regions open for economic exploitation and military-strategic application. While the concept is ambiguous and has never been officially defined, it regards polar regions¹, deep seas, space, and cyberspace as domains, which are gradually opening up for development due to advances in technology. (Andersson 2021) At the same time, the new frontiers are depicted as domains whose importance is acknowledged by all the great powers, and thus also as theaters of intensifying strategic competition. (Legarda 2025) To maintain the momentum of its economic growth and to remain at the leading edge of technological development – particularly in the “disruptive” fields such as artificial intelligence and renewable energy – China considers it necessary to establish a steady foothold in these strategic frontiers.

The Arctic is a region where many of China’s strategic frontiers intertwine. Its sealanes could become major avenues of international trade following the melting of Arctic ice, and the region holds vast untapped energy and mineral resources – much of which reside in the depths of the Arctic ocean. The Arctic is also perceived in China as a region of intensifying military-strategic competition, in which deep sea capabilities, such as submarines and potentially also autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), are seen as vitally important. Space, meanwhile, is intimately connected to both, since any great power seeking to establish a permanent presence in the Arctic must be able to navigate, monitor and communicate across the region, all of which depend on space-based assets. Thus, establishing a foothold in the Arctic requires a three-dimensional presence in these strategic frontiers – the deep sea, surface waters, and space.

Our article focuses on the interconnections among the “strategic frontiers” in China’s Arctic strategy, and analyzes China’s efforts to access these frontiers in the region, particularly the surface and subsurface domains of the Arctic Ocean. We will first explore how the three domains and their interlinkages have been framed in Chinese strategic discussions – in both official documents and academic debates. We then examine the concrete manifestations of China’s recent advances in Arctic technologies, namely scientific expeditions, recent experiments with both manned and unmanned submersibles, and attempts to establish space-based monitoring, navigation and communication capabilities bolstered with a network of ground stations. While much of China’s activity in the region is framed primarily as commercial and especially scientific in its nature, China also sees the strategic frontiers as a concern of national security. The three-dimensional presence should therefore also be seen as providing a basis for military operations in the region through the dual-use nature of these capabilities and more specifically, through China’s policy of military-civil fusion.

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¹ Polar regions (极地) refer to both the Arctic and Antarctic.

The growth of China’s economy has entailed a widening of China’s national interests overseas. As a heavily export-oriented manufacturing economy, China has grown increasingly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials, minerals and energy, while the same economic engine also relies heavily on secure sea lanes for carrying its exports towards their markets. Reflecting these developments, Chinese foreign policy and military strategy have, since the early 2000s, placed a growing emphasis on the security of China’s “overseas interests”, which China as an aspiring “maritime great power” must be able to protect. In 2015, China’s military strategy codified “far seas protection” (远海护卫) and the securing of China’s overseas interests as key tasks of the evolving naval strategy. (‘China’s Military Strategy’ 2015)

Around same time, China established “overall national security outlook” (总体国家安全观) as the guiding framework for its security policy. The concept integrates political, economic, military and numerous other domains of security into a holistic framework, and treats international and domestic security issues as deeply interdependent phenomena. Importantly, the overall national security outlook also counts the new strategic frontiers as vital subdomains of security – regions, whose utilization is crucial for maintaining China’s economic and technological security, and thus ultimately the security of the Communist Party regime. The new frontiers were officially codified as a national security issue in China’s 2015 National Security Law, which stated that China will “peacefully explore and exploit outer space, international seabed and the polar regions”, and protect the “security of activities, resources and interests” in the said domains. (‘National Security Law of the People’s Republic of China’ 2015) China’s 2025 National Security White Paper similarly defines the polar regions, deep seas and space as domains where security concerns keep emerging, and whose management requires a systemic response from the government. (‘China’s National Security in the New Era’ 2025)

The securitization of the new frontiers as an issue of national security suggests that China is seriously preparing for a near-future, in which these domains will be available for commercial use and become targets of great power competition. While official documents remain rather vague on the specifics, Chinese scholars of international relations and strategic studies tend to be rather direct and realpolitik oriented in debating the strategic value of the frontiers. When it comes to the Arctic, numerous scholars emphasize the potentially ample opportunities for commerce and resource extraction following receding polar ice. (Puranen and Kopra 2023) Simultaneously, artificial intelligence is seen as enabling the development of increasingly capable autonomous vehicles, which can map the depths of the seas and perhaps soon begin harvesting minerals, genetic materials and other resources from the deep seabeds. (Zhang and Guo 2023) Importantly, many Chinese scholars note that large parts of the new frontiers can be defined as “global commons“, that is, regions not under sovereign jurisdiction of any single country, and thus theoretically up for the first-mover to control. (Wang 2024)

However, China does not view the new frontiers as important only due to their economic potential. Within the People’s Liberation Army, the new frontiers have, for long, been perceived as future domains of potential military confrontation. The PLA Academy of Military Science’s textbook Science of Military Strategy, published in 2013, for example, discusses the expansion of great power military competition into the new, yet also internationally and commonly owned, environments – polar regions, space, cyberspace, and deep seas – following rapid developments in information technology and artificial intelligence (Shou 2013: 73–4, 81). More recent sources affiliated with the PLA, such as the 2020 edition of Science of Military Strategy_, label the new frontiers as “new domains of military struggle” towards which military great powers are increasingly directing their attention. (Xiao 2020) Some PLA-affiliated scholars, such as Kuang Lasheng describe the deep sea as the definite domain of future naval warfare, from which surface, land, and air domains can be controlled. (Kuang 2024). Zuo Pengfei, another military academic affiliated with China’s National Defense University, meanwhile, discussed in his 2018 book A study on Polar Strategy, the importance of China pursuing the country’s strategic interests in the region through a macro-level military-civilian fusion approach which would combine various civilian and military means to build as much strength as possible. (Zuo 2018: 85)

Apparently, China aims to establish presence in these frontiers through a comprehensive approach, which combines the use of political, scientific, economic, and military instruments. Politically China attempts to influence international jurisdiction and normative structures, which are generally thin in the new frontiers, and thus open for China to “fill out the blank spots” with legislation better suited to its interests. (Zhang and Liu 2021) In a concrete sense, China could, for example, attempt to define Arctic straits as international waterways in order to provide a legitimate basis for transits through Arctic shipping routes. Regarding the deep seas, China has been an active member of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – a UN-sanctioned organization, which manages the international deep seabed known as “the Area”. Within the ISA, China has actively lobbied for the adoption of a mining code, which would establish regulations for mining operations in the international seabed, and has already successfully secured five exploration contracts from the organization. (Kardon and Camacho 2023)

However, the bedrock of this strategy lies in expanding China’s presence in the new frontiers through commercial, and especially scientific, means. In this, the most important instruments at China’s disposal are the top-level strategic plans – especially the five-year plans – drafted by the central government. Although five-year plans no longer fulfill the explicit planning function they held during the socialist era, they remain heavyweight tools for shaping incentive structures around the goals and priorities set by the Communist Party leadership, and thus reflect China’s strategic interests.

China has discussed the polar regions and the deep seas together in its five-year plans since at least the 13^th plan, published in 2016, which called for the strengthening of scientific and technological capabilities in both domains. (‘13th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China’ 2016) However, it was not until the run up to the 14^th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) period that China’s polar and deep-sea research and development (R&D) efforts were more concretely merged together. This was visible not only in the five-year plan itself, but also in other key national R&D projects. The 14^th Five-Year Plan outlined plans for the second phase of the Jiaolong Sea Exploration (蛟龙探海) and Xuelong Polar Exploration (雪龙探极) national projects under the heading of Deep space, Deep earth, Deep sea, and Polar exploration cutting-edge research projects. (‘14th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China’ 2021) During this period, polar and deep sea technologies were also for the first time combined under a single national key R&D project, which focused, among other strategic goals, on developing the world’s leading deep sea access capability and technologies for three-dimensional polar air-space-ground-sea monitoring. (Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China 2021) Finally, the newest, 15^th plan published in 2026, continued to emphasize the need to establish a “robust system for observing the deep-sea and polar regions”. (‘15th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China’ 2026)

The Arctic region is an interesting case, since it is a domain in which many, if not all, of the new strategic frontiers intersect. Moreover, recurring formulations in China’s strategic plans concerning scientific and technological priorities suggest that polar and deep-sea regions are increasingly seen as closely interlinked domains, whose technological advancements and strategic value reinforce each other. The connection was emphasized recently also by Guan Zhiou, China’s minister of natural resources, who suggested that:

“Controlling the new frontiers of the polar and deep sea regions is a strategic task of the future, which holds crucial importance for safeguarding national security, and for leading the marine economy towards high-quality development.“² (Guan 2026)

The prioritization of the polar and deep-sea regions in strategic discourses is reflected in China’s concrete actions, since in the past few years the Arctic has increasingly served as both a testing ground and as a frontier for China to research and develop cutting-edge technologies to better access these domains. The country’s strategic documents clearly link the these endeavours, among other goals, to the national strategy of building China into a strong maritime country (建设海洋强国). (Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China 2021) Expansion into these domains has not only served as a demonstration of China’s scientific prowess, but also symbolizes its growing national strength and capabilities to operate in these frontiers to which only few nations have access to.

China’s polar scientific activities and Arctic expeditions have had a concrete role in building these capabilities. As Martin Kossa argues, the investments in polar research and studying the regions have translated into the construction of a number of icebreakers, research buoys, submersibles and remote-sensing infrastructure such as polar-orbiting satellites. (Kossa 2024: 52) These have aimed to make the Arctic observable and monitorable from multiple dimensions, with the ultimate goal of establishing an integrated Arctic scientific observation and monitoring network. However, instead of building a comprehensive monitoring and listening network in the region, as suggested by a 2023 South post article (Chen 2023), this goal has more likely reflected China’s efforts to establish capabilities for reliably operating, navigating, and communicating in Arctic waters, including in subsurface and under-ice environments. Each of these areas presents distinct scientific challenges and contain elements which are relevant for both the country’s civil and military interests. The following section discusses China’s recent activities in the Arctic, and in the related new frontiers.

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² 经略深海极地新疆域是面向未来的战略性事业，对保障国家安全、引领促进海洋经济高质量发展具有重要的战略意义

Arctic scientific expeditions have been one of the main ways for China to gain an understanding of the Arctic region and its hydrographic, underwater acoustic, and environmental conditions. These expeditions were started in 1999 with the intent of expanding the country’s polar research activities that had begun over a decade earlier in Antarctica. (Zhao 2024) To carry out these expeditions, China originally had only one research icebreaker, the Xuelong, that it had purchased from Ukraine and refurbished for polar scientific research activities. In 2004, China also established the Yellow River Research Station (黄河站) on Svalbard. These two components, the research station on Svalbard and the research expeditions conducted with icebreakers, have formed the backbone of China’s scientific activities in the region.

An examination of the relatively short history of China’s Arctic scientific expeditions demonstrates how the expeditions have had varying priorities and goals over the years. These expeditions became annual from 2017 onwards. (Millard and Lackenbauer 2021) One of the most significant priorities throughout the years has been conducting scientific research in a number of natural science fields and obtaining scientific data relevant for understanding the speed and effects of climate change and environmental and biological conditions of the Arctic Ocean. (Li et al. 2004) This data has also been seen as valuable for understanding the adverse effects for China’s own climate and extreme weather conditions. (Jakobson and Peng 2012) However, as will be discussed later, the scientific research activities have also focused on several areas which have dual-use potential and some of the research has in all likelihood served the needs of the country’s military research and development interests.

Another goal has been to map and traverse all the major Arctic Sea routes and push ever further north to the densest sea-ice regions of the Arctic Ocean and to the North Pole. (Millard and Lackenbauer 2021) In 2012, Xuelong traversed the Northeast Passage for the first time after obtaining a permission from Russian authorities. In 2017, it also navigated the Northwest Passage and the Transpolar Sea Route. (Xinhua 2017) As one Chinese mission report describing the 2012 expedition states, “breaking free” of the limitations of the country’s scientific activities being able to be only conducted in selected areas was an important breakthrough for the country in the region. (Key Lab of Polar Oceanography and Global Ocean Change 2019) China’s research activities have been over the years largely confined to the international waters of the Arctic Ocean, due to UNCLOS constraints and resistance from other Arctic states. (Lajeneusse and Lalonde 2023)

New icebreakers and other advancements, however, have allowed these expeditions to push farther north, into the Central Arctic Ocean and all the way to the North Pole. The milestone of reaching the geographic North Pole was achieved during China’s 13^th Arctic scientific expedition in 2023. (China News Network 2023) It signalled that China is able to increasingly conduct research activities in areas that it could not previously access. In 2021 and 2025, for example, China conducted surveys of the Gakkel Ridge, which is an underwater mountain range located in the Central Arctic Ocean near Greenland and Svalbard. (Eiterjord 2024; Xinhua 2025a) It is a scientifically interesting area due to its high levels of volcanic activity and hydrothermal vents (Cochran 2008), but the research conducted in this hard-to-access area is also a sign of China’s increasing polar research capabilities. In general, it can be stated that the investments into the country’s polar research capabilities and equipment have meant that the country’s research activities are no longer only limited to areas such as the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

In recent years, the size and scope of China’s research expeditions have also grown, due to the country constructing several new research icebreakers. The 2024 and 2025 expeditions were the first ones where China simultaneously deployed several icebreakers to the region. (Wu 2025) These allow the country to conduct an ever-increasing number of scientific experiments, device tests, and surveying activities as part of the annual expeditions. The expansion into new domains has also been visible in the Arctic in recent years, primarily through China’s testing activities in the region as part of its Arctic scientific expeditions. Some of the technological innovations and successful tests of new advanced polar AUVs in recent years and under-ice operations of two manned submersibles during the 2025 Arctic expedition (Xinhua 2025a) demonstrate how China is increasingly developing and testing capabilities for operating reliably both in both polar and deep-sea domains.

While China’s Arctic scientific expeditions have primarily served as a platform for legitimate scientific research, including climate, glaciology, atmospheric, and oceanographic research, many of the research priorities and activities over recent years have also likely supported the country’s military research and development efforts. In addition to this, we can also see that China has started to test different types of polar AUVs as part of these expeditions, combining advanced under-ice and deep-sea capabilities.

Many of these advanced AUVs that have been tested recently during China’s Arctic scientific expeditions have been developed by institutions within the Harbin Engineering University (HEU). HEU is sometimes referred to in China as one of the “Seven Sons of National Defence” (国防七子) (Jüris 2022) due to its close links with the People’s Liberation Army. The university hosts several key national laboratories for military and civilian AUV development, including the Defense S&T Key Laboratory of Military Underwater Intelligent Robotic Technology. This institution was behind the development of some of China’s earliest military-use AUVs, including the Zhishui series in the early 2000s. (Ray et al. 2016: 66) More recently, the defense laboratory has been renamed as the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Marine Vehicle Technology and has expanded research into developing polar AUVs, among other types of unmanned underwater vehicles. (Ma 2023; Harbin Engineering University 2024)

As part of the Chinese government’s polar research priorities, Harbin Engineering University has also become a hub for applied research into polar acoustics. It has already earlier been a key institution for military and civilian underwater acoustic research in China (Jüris 2022), but in 2023, the Ministry of Education’s Key Laboratory of Polar Oceans Acoustics and Technological Applications was also established under the university (Wen and Zhu 2023). Polar acoustics is a highly specialized field that relates to environmental research as well as to solving practical issues related to communication, navigation, and obstacle detection in under-ice conditions. (Huang et al. 2025: 548) In this regard, Harbin Engineering University has been developing different types of sonars and other devices to make under ice navigation and observation possible. (Wen and Wang 2023) In general, the research areas that the university focuses on have, in several areas, significant dual-use potential, and to this end, the institutions’ statements and publications also make it clear that its research in large part serves national security purposes. (Chai 2024)

These factors demonstrate that in some areas China’s civil and military polar research priorities as well as polar and deep-sea research have become more fused together. This is likely due to the emergence of national strategies such as “military-civil fusion” (军民融合) in 2014, which has sought to integrate the civilian and military scientific innovation base within China and to promote joint exploration of seas and sharing of data and other resources between civilian and military actors. (Kossa 2024: 25) However, the actual priorities for polar and deep-sea research have been dictated by Chinese government institutions and the national Five-Year Development plans and National Key R&D projects discussed above. These together have steered the Chinese polar research activities to expand to the deep seas and include also a notable space component.

Efforts to construct China’s first advanced domestic polar AUVs for under-ice exploration can be traced to 2019, when Harbin Engineering University and other research institutions started a collaborative project under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). (Zhu 2019) Before this, China had throughout the years tested different types of less sophisticated AUVs in the region, such as the Arctic ARV (Peng and Zhang 2014), which could be operated either remotely or be pre-programmed to complete certain tasks, but many of these had limited autonomy and operating ranges. The MIIT project aimed to achieve a number of important breakthroughs specifically in polar deep-sea exploration, including in the design of polar AUVs, under-ice acoustic positioning and communication, and environmental detection. (Zhu 2019)

The polar AUV developed by HEU, which was eventually called the Xinghai-1000, was tested in the Arctic during China’s 13^th Arctic scientific expedition in 2023. Based on the available mission reports, it was used primarily to conduct under-ice dives and to obtain ice morphology data, which helps to understand various features of the sea ice and its melting. (Wen and Wang 2023) While there exists limited technical information on the device, according to one Chinese academic article published in 2022, the prototype version of this AUV had a working range of 200km and an operating depth of 1000m. (Cheng et al. 2022) These marked significant technological advancements compared to many earlier devices that had been used by China in the Arctic. Interestingly, according to some mission statements the AUV was also equipped with a multibeam ice-shape detection sonar developed internally by the HEU School of Underwater Acoustics. (Wen and Wang 2023) Multibeam sonars have traditionally been used in the Arctic to not only obtain under-ice morphology data, but also to map the seafloor beneath the ice shelves. (Fan, Bose, and Liang 2024: 36) This likely marked another technological advancement in China’s polar research capabilities, but also demonstrates how research institutions within HEU are working on different applied solutions for observing the areas under the polar ice.

These successes were followed in 2024 and 2025 during the 14^th and 15^th Arctic scientific expeditions by tests of another sophisticated polar AUV with significant deep-sea capabilities developed also by Harbin Engineering University, the Wukong 6000. This device belongs to the same family as the similarly named Wukong AUV that broke the world record for the deepest dive by unmanned, untethered submersible in 2021 by reaching a depth of 10,896 meters. (Harbin Engineering University 2025) While the information on the specific tests conducted during these expeditions by the AUV are thin, the device was developed specifically by the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Marine Vehicle Technology. This is the institution that was previously named as Key Laboratory of Military Underwater Intelligent Robotic Technology. In its website, it is stated that the laboratory specializes in advanced unmanned platforms, intelligent control, and swarm intelligence technologies – all areas which are highly relevant for research and development of military-use AUVs. (Harbin Engineering University 2024)

Overall, these are just some of the most recent examples of China’s AUV testing activities in the Arctic, but testing and scientific research use of polar AUVs as part of the Arctic scientific expeditions has become a common occurrence in the past few years. Chinese media and research statements often discuss these tests as scientific advancements and breakthroughs. At the same time, the testing and applied research of polar deep sea AUVs and different under-ice navigation, communication, and environmental detection solutions is cutting-edge research, which has important civilian and military applications. In this area, China’s domestic capabilities have advanced relatively fast and the country is catching up to other countries, especially in terms of building specifically these types of AUVs which combine both deep sea and polar capabilities.

These activities have been further enabled by China constructing several new domestic research icebreakers. China currently has five research icebreakers that it regularly deploys to the region as part of the Arctic scientific expeditions. From these, the Xuelong 2 and Jidi are equipped with moon pools that allow AUVs to be deployed directly from the vessels themselves. (See Qing 2023) The Tan Suo San Hao, a deep sea and polar hybrid research icebreaker vessel, can also act as a mothership for manned submersibles. (Khanna 2025b) Together, these vessels increasingly enable China to deploy and operate AUVs and other submersibles in the region during Arctic scientific expeditions to map, study, and survey the seabed and previously inaccessible areas beneath the ice shelves.

In 2020, President Xi Jinping congratulated in a letter the scientists and engineers that had worked on the Fendouzhe, one of the country’s most advanced manned submersibles, after it had completed a 10,909-meter dive in the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans. He called on the scientists to continue to “keep scaling new heights and accelerate the nation’s progress in becoming a maritime power” and to keep contributing to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. (Chen 2020) According to one of the scientists that had worked on the submersible, this marked a significant milestone of China becoming one of the few countries to achieve “full ocean depth capability”. (China Daily 2021)

Five years later, during the 15^th Arctic scientific expedition in 2025, the Fendouzhe was also tested in Arctic waters together with another manned submersible called the Jiaolong. These two manned submersibles conducted what the Chinese state media company Xinhua described as “joint underwater operations.” (Xinhua 2025a) This was the first time that China had carried out manned dives under the polar ice. The expedition itself was also the final one of the 14^th Five-Year Plan period and China’s largest Arctic scientific expedition to date. Four research vessels, the Xue Long 2, Jidi, Shenhai Yi Hao, and Tan Suo San Hao participated in the main expedition and carried out these submersible tests discussed in Xinhua. (Wu 2025) Separately, the Sun Yat-sen University research vessel Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di also conducted its own research activities in the central Arctic Ocean. (Polar Science Center of Sun Yat-sen University 2025)

China’s manned submersible tests during the expedition were notable from several different aspects. The most striking detail was that China deployed two submersibles to the region rather than testing just one. This was a considerable step up from the previous AUV tests and a significantly more demanding logistical exercise. The manned submersibles were delivered to the region on board the Tan Suo San Hao and Shenhai Yi Hao, two of the country’s deep-sea research vessels. (Wu 2025) While the Tan Suo San Hao has ice-strengthening and could traverse to the Central Arctic Ocean by itself, Shenhai Yi Hao had to be escorted to the region by Xue Long 2 as part of the mission. Notably, these vessels are also administratively under China’s two main deep-sea research institutions, the National Deep Sea Center (Shenhai Yi Hao) and the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Tan Suo San Hao), which have been behind many of the country’s record-breaking dives to the deepest points in earth’s oceans (Khanna 2025a, 2025b) Their involvement in the Arctic scientific expedition is another sign of the growing link between China’s polar and deep-sea ambitions.

The dives themselves were also significant and noted in Chinese state media. According to one report, the Fendouzhe conducted the first manned deep-dive exploration of the Gakkel Ridge and during one of the dives reached a maximum depth of 5,277 meters. (Xinhua 2025a) Another report mentioned that the submersible carried out 43 dives under the Arctic ice and that the average diving time was over 9 hours. It also proclaimed that with these tests China had become the only country in the world to conduct “continuous manned deep dives in the dense sea-ice region of the Arctic.” (Lü 2025) These claims are likely partially true, as while Russia had earlier during the 2007 “Arktika” expedition planted a flag to the seabed at the geographical North Pole with its Mir-1 and Mir-2 submersibles, this mission did not involve a large number of successive dives. (‘Arktika-2007’ 2017) Yet, with these dives China was effectively repeating, at least in part, what Russia had done earlier. China has not to this day operated submarines in the Arctic Ocean, but these tests could be seen as also providing a lot of relevant data for this end.

At the same time, there exists relatively little public information on the technical details of the joint underwater operations of these manned submersibles from which we can draw conclusions from. One Xinhua report described that the submersibles conducted search and localization exercises together, exchanged markers, and filmed underwater. (Lü 2025) The report also stated that during the expedition the scientists had innovated “an underwater collaborative operation mode” for dual manned submersibles. Another article shows, in one of the pictures, Shenhai Yi Hao and Tan Suo San Hao anchored next to each other in an unspecified location, likely in the Central Arctic Ocean, with the caption stating that the two submersibles had conducted joint underwater operations in the Arctic Ocean. (See Wu 2025)

The importance of these dives was therefore likely not only symbolic, but also tested the potential of these devices for future use in the region as part of the expeditions. The successful dives and their significance were, however, celebrated in Chinese state media. In an interview, the chief scientist of the expedition, Lin Longshan, saw that the combination of operating four ships, successful sea trials of several new domestic equipment, and the manned deep dives marked China’s scientific expedition capabilities moving from “following” to “running” or even to “leading” in some areas. (Xinhua 2025b)

In addition to surveying the surface and the depths of the polar regions, China has also aimed to make the region observable and accessible from above. To this end, it has been aiming to strengthen its satellite infrastructure “in and above the Arctic.” (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) This has included plans for building satellite ground stations in the region and a constellation for monitoring the Arctic. These measures have primarily aimed to improve China’s domestic remote-sensing capabilities and to enhance the reliability of the country’s satellite navigation system, Beidou, in the region.

Both the Arctic and Antarctica are important geographic locations for China to build satellite infrastructure and to conduct applied research. The Yellow River Station on Svalbard and several of China’s polar research stations in Antarctica have, for example, served as important hubs for ionospheric and other space physics research. (Zhao 2024) Chinese sources discuss these sites as being used, in addition to polar environment observation, for ionospheric and space physics research, as well as having a role in testing the reliability of Beidou and other navigation solutions in the region. (Li 2004) As at least ionospheric and other areas of space physics research have important applications also for national defense purposes, Chinese military scholars have sometimes referred to the polar regions as an important “expansion ground for military scientific research” (军事科研的拓展地). (Zuo 2018: 13) With this, they have alluded to the historical role of polar regions as development sites for electromagnetic and meteorological weapons and to the fact that various countries have, according to them, used scientific activities to strengthen their military-related activities and research in the region. (Xiao 2020)

The Arctic space component has also, in recent years, been discussed in selected Chinese planning documents and in Chinese polar research articles as one integral part of what is sometimes referred to as a three-dimensional polar environment monitoring system (极地环境立体探测系统). (Cheng et al. 2022) This system is often depicted in these articles as integrating different types of assets, such as remote-sensing satellites, research icebreakers, and AUVs among others for polar observation and monitoring. The role of the space-based assets, such as earth-observing and communication satellites, is often depicted in these articles as either providing links for transmitting environmental observation data or serving as additional tools for remotely observing the Arctic. (See Cheng et al. 2022; Huang et al. 2025) Different acoustic navigation buoys and systems are also often featured in these depictions as important links that extend the satellite navigation signals to underwater and under-ice conditions in the Arctic and which make navigation possible in these sub-surface areas.

In this sense, the space component is often presented as both enabling China’s activities in the region and supporting the monitoring of the region itself. The 14^th National Key R&D Project for Key Polar and Deep-Sea Technologies and Equipment discusses the space component specifically in the context of overcoming technological challenges for three-dimensional space-ground-sea (空天地海) observation in polar regions (Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China 2021). Remote-sensing satellites play an important role in these efforts. China launched in 2019 its first polar monitoring micro-satellite, the Jingshi-1 or BNU-1. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) This was originally supposed to be part of a constellation of 24 satellites which would be completed by 2030, but after the first satellite, there have been no further launches. Additionally, China also maintains selected remote-sensing satellite systems, such as Gaofen-3 series Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites and Ziyuan-3 series stereoscopic mapping satellites, which have been verifiably used for polar environment observation. (Cheng et al. 2022) Separately, it also has many other remote-sensing satellite systems, including the Yaogan series of military reconnaissance satellites and some Gaofen series satellites (Swope 2024), which could be potentially used for monitoring the region, but on which little public information is available.

In many Chinese news and research articles, the need to strengthen the country’s domestic remote-sensing capabilities in the region has been linked to the need to monitor Arctic waterways and the sea ice conditions. During its launch, the BNU-1 was also discussed as primarily being used for this purpose and it is also notably equipped with an AIS receiver, which helps to track vessels along these routes. (Yuan et al. 2019) These efforts have been viewed as important also for the future as the traffic along Arctic sea routes increases. To this end, China is preparing and developing domestic navigation solutions. The 14^th National Key R&D Project that was discussed earlier included a research project for ensuring communication and navigation support in the Arctic Sea Routes. It aimed to build a database for Arctic nautical charts and to publish several charts also for key Arctic sea routes, such as the Northeast and the Northwest Passage. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) In addition to this, China has over the years incrementally improved the reliability of its satellite navigation system in the region. In 2020, the third-generation Beidou system became operational and, according to many estimates, substantially improved the coverage of the system in the Arctic. (Zhao et al. 2022) While some limitations remain, the improvements over the years have been notable and made the system more comparable to other GNSS-systems in the region.

In this manner, China has aimed to become self-sufficient and to develop domestic technological alternatives for many satellite-based services for which it was previously dependent on foreign solutions. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023; Cheng et al. 2022) One contentious issue for the country has, however, been its lack of high-latitude satellite ground stations in the Arctic region. China has throughout the years aimed to establish satellite ground stations in a number of different Arctic states, but these efforts have had only limited success. These stations are crucial for increasing the daily satellite data reception time from polar-orbiting satellites. These are not only satellites meant specifically for monitoring polar regions, but also include different types of earth-observing and reconnaissance satellites. (Falco, Boschetti, and Nikas 2024) The strategic value for China to strengthen its satellite infrastructure in the Arctic is therefore not only limited to the polar regions, but also serves its broader strategic aims in building its global remote-sensing capabilities.

In a reflection of this reality, China’s first overseas satellite ground station, the North Polar Ground Station, was built in 2016 in Kiruna, Sweden. (Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth 2025) The Swedish authorities decided, however, in 2020 to not renew the station’s contract due to potential concerns over the station being used for dual-purposes. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) Chinese research institutes were also in talks around the same time as the Kiruna station became operational to establish similar ground stations in Greenland and Sodankylä, Finland, but these projects were halted in their early stages by the authorities in Denmark and Finland. (Edstrøm, Hauksdóttir, and Lackenbauer 2025) As many of China’s cooperative initiatives on this front have faced difficulties, Chinese scientists have instead advocated constructing more satellite ground stations in Antarctica and other areas which the country has access to. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) To this end, in December 2025, China announced that it had established a new satellite ground station in its northernmost city of Mohe in Heilongjiang province. This promised to improve the daily reception time of data from the country’s polar-orbiting satellites by a significant degree. (Gong 2025) In this way, China has aimed to also overcome these limitations and reduce its dependency on foreign facilities.

All in all, China’s polar ambitions are not limited only to surface and subsurface access, but also include a notable space component. Some researchers have viewed this as China seeking to establish “remote presence” in the region and as using space as an entry point to the region. (Bennett and Eiterjord 2023) This is likely true, but space technologies and infrastructure also equally enable and support the country’s broader activities in the region. China’s efforts have sought to establish reliable domestic capabilities and become less reliant on foreign providers. Separately, China has also had some other strategic aims in the region in which the Arctic and space domains have intersected, such as in building a missile early-warning system. On this front, China and Russia have cooperated at least since 2019. (Wang 2019) These efforts demonstrate, as do the initiatives such as establishing a three-dimensional space-ground-sea monitoring system, that China is increasingly seeking to strengthen its capabilities in multiple domains simultaneously to make the polar regions more operationally accessible, observable, and navigable for its own needs.

As discussed above, China has in recent years not only designated the “new strategic frontiers” as a key focus in its strategic plans, but also increasingly developed relevant capabilities for expanding its presence within them. Within the Arctic, the mainstream of China’s approach has consisted of persistently investing resources for creating a scientific and technological basis for a three-dimensional presence by developing icebreakers, manned and unmanned submersibles, and space capabilities. China’s recurring Arctic scientific expeditions, meanwhile, have also served more than purely scientific purposes. In many ways, they have provided a platform for testing and developing technologies that have expanded China’s capabilities to operate in previously inaccessible environments in the Arctic. The manned submersible dives of Fendouzhe and Jiaolong during the 15^th Arctic Scientific Expedition in 2025 were a significant demonstration in this regard, as they not only proved that China could operate two manned submersibles under the polar ice, but also served as a concrete demonstration of the growing scope of China’s scientific activities in the region. The growing convergence between polar and deep-sea activities and the involvement of China’s deep sea research institutions in the Arctic scientific expeditions has also been a notable development in recent years.

Seen against China’s openly stated policy of increasing cooperation between civilian and military actors through “military-civil fusion”, all of these technological advances can – and presumably will – be utilized for developing military capabilities operable in polar and deep-sea environments. However, China’s capabilities are still lagging behind those of the Western countries. Its planned three-dimensional monitoring system would need to include multiple different types of devices, AUVs, and fixed sensors, and to be deployed long-term in the region in order to create a comprehensive monitoring network in Arctic waters, similar to the US Navy’s Arctic Mobile Observing System (AMOS) project. (Fan, Bose, and Liang 2024: 36) Still, with its expanding three-dimensional presence, China is becoming a considerable near-peer competitor in the region.

For the Arctic states, China’s Arctic scientific activities require active monitoring. The country’s testing activities and growing Arctic scientific capabilities cannot be dismissed as merely symbolic or rhetorical, but neither can they be construed as immediate military threats. As presented here, the more important developments in this regard are the relatively rapid advancements that China has made in a number of areas related to its three-dimensional environment monitoring capabilities, such as the development of polar deep-sea AUVs, remote-sensing satellites and building new research icebreakers. While China’s capabilities in several areas might still lag behind many Arctic states, the relatively fast advancements the country has made warrant careful monitoring in the years to come.

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