Has China successfully tried the Northwest Passage of the Arctic?

On September 7th, China's eighth Arctic scientific expedition successfully crossed the Northwest Passage of the Arctic on the 6th aboard the "Snow Dragon", which opened up a new sea passage for China from the North American economic circle to the Northeast Asian economic circle.

On August 30th, Beijing time 14: 08, Snow Dragon entered davis strait, passing through Baffin Bay, Lancaster Bay, Pierre Strait, Victoria Strait and Amundsen Bay. Along the way, many difficulties such as tortuous navigation channel, dense floating ice, scattered icebergs, frequent sea fog, night navigation in ice area and so on were overcome. It lasted 8 days and sailed 2293 nautical miles. It was September Beijing time.

The Arctic Channel mainly includes the northeast channel along the Russian coast, the northwest channel through the Arctic Islands in northern Canada and the central channel through the high seas in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. So far, "Snow Dragon", as the pioneer of China's trial of the Arctic waterway, has successively completed the first crossing of the three major Arctic waterways, which directly promoted the commercial utilization of the Arctic waterway by China ships. This year, China will have six merchant ships sailing in the northeast channel of the Arctic.

During the trial voyage of the Northwest Passage, the expedition team also carried out submarine topography survey, collected meteorological and sea ice related data, collected biodiversity analysis samples, and obtained first-hand marine environmental data, which filled the gap in China's investigation in this sea area. This will promote China to systematically evaluate the seaworthiness of the Northwest Arctic waterway and serve China's national economic construction.

Northwest Passage refers to the sea passage connecting the North Pacific Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean along the northern coast of the North American continent, through the waters of the Canadian Arctic Islands and the northern waters of Alaska, USA. Compared with the traditional route connecting Northeast Asia and the east coast of North America through the Panama Canal, the voyage is shortened by about 20%. Taking Shanghai to new york as an example, the voyage of the traditional route through the Panama Canal is about 10500 nautical miles, while the voyage through the northwest channel is about 8600 nautical miles, which can save about 7 days' flight time. With global warming, the melting speed of Arctic sea ice is accelerating, and the time window for navigation of navigation channels is also constantly extending.