Russia and China’s “no limits” partnership has strengthened considerably over the past three years; they have been driven together by the geopolitical clash between East and West. But there is one place they remain rivals: the Arctic.

“Even in the current geopolitical climate, the differences between Moscow and Beijing’s approaches to the Arctic have so far proven too great to overcome, limiting China’s advances in the Far North,” said Andrei Dagaev, a political scientist in a paper for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And that rivalry may be about to get more complicated with US knocking at the door. During the first meeting between the White House and Kremlin in Riyadh on February 18 cooperating in developing Russia’s extensive oil and gas resources in the region was on the agenda.

"It was more a general discussion – maybe joint projects in the Arctic. We specifically discussed the Arctic," Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a member of the five man team, said after the meeting.

Despite frequent declarations of unity, Beijing and Moscow have been unable to reconcile their fundamentally different approaches to the region. China regards itself as a “near-Arctic” nation and that so the region belongs to all humanity. Moscow views it far more narrowly and is focused on exploiting its natural resources on a nationalistic basis, as well as a security issue as Russia’s longest border.

China’s interest in the Arctic dates back to the early 2010s, when it sought observer status in the Arctic Council, the region’s key multilateral body that is dominated by Russia. The Kremlin initially hesitated, insisting that China respect regional sovereignty and abide by freedom-of-navigation rules. China was finally admitted in 2013, gaining a foothold in Arctic diplomacy. Five years later, Beijing published its first Arctic white paper, describing itself as a “near-Arctic state” with legitimate interests in the region. It integrated the Arctic into its global Belt and Road Initiative through the concept of a “Polar Silk Road,” presenting itself as a responsible stakeholder in Arctic governance.

Russia, by contrast, has pursued a sovereignty-driven Arctic policy. Moscow has prioritised the development of the Arctic’s massive oil and gas reserves – last year the Arctic accounted for 80% of Russia’s gas output and 17% of its oil production – as well as the Northern Sea Route, viewing the region as an economic and strategic jewel. In recent years, references to multilateral engagement have disappeared from Russian Arctic policy documents, as the world polarises and Russia focus on its own national interests.

These divergent priorities have caused problems for the Sino-Russian bromance. Cooperation on developing the regional energy assets is the one thing holding the relationship together, but even that is not going well.

China provided crucial financing for Russian oil and gas projects in the region in the aftermath of Western sanctions in 2014. However, even as Russia has become more economically dependent on China since the start of the war in Ukraine three years ago, relations over the Arctic remain prickly. Despite repeated commitments by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to deepen Arctic cooperation, Beijing has kept its distance.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China took a neutral approach to Russia’s war and also to Arctic governance, neither condemning nor endorsing Moscow’s position. When the other Arctic Council members boycotted Russian-chaired meetings, Beijing refused to exclude Russia but also suspended its own participation in the organisation. Similarly, China continued to engage with Russian energy projects but eventually suspended that cooperation in the face of US sanctions.

The case of Russia’s flagship Arctic LNG-2 project highlighted the tensions. In 2019, Chinese state-owned oil companies CNPC and CNOOC acquired a 20% stake in the liquefied natural gas project, becoming its largest investors. Yet in December 2023, under pressure from tightening US sanctions, they pulled out. Russia’s LNG national campion Novatek turned to China for gas turbines and other equipment after US sanctions cut it off from US manufacturers – the only suppliers – and Beijing initially ignored US pressure to halt deliveries of Chinese analogues, only to halt sales in January 2025, when additional US sanctions forced China to back off.

“The fact is that expectations that China might expand its presence in the Arctic through partnership with Russia have not been fulfilled,” Dagaev says. “For Beijing, the priority remains having the freedom to work with all the Arctic’s interested parties. As such, while China continued to fulfil Russia’s technology orders for energy projects in the Arctic and import energy from the region, it has refrained from investing further in Russia’s Arctic initiatives out of fear of sanctions.”

Despite these setbacks, China remains committed to internationalising Arctic projects and promoting multilateralism. However, Dagaev concluded that “with war raging, Russia is less likely than ever to help China in this endeavour.”

What role the US might play together with Russia in the Arctic remains unclear as the talks on a ceasefire deal are right at the start, but US President Donald Trump has made it clear that expanding US oil and gas production is at the heart of his “drill, baby, drill” plans.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who lead the Riyadh delegations also hinted heavily business deals in the works; he said if a ceasefire deal could be done it would “unlock historic opportunities for cooperation” between the US and Russia.

Pre-war US companies were actively working in Russia’s Far North, led by ExxonMobil, and it is possible that if tensions subside, they may be allowed to return. Trump has several trump cards to play, especially lifting the ban on the export of technology that would allow Novatek to finish the second train of the LNG-2 project. Russia wants to triple its LNG exports, but without that technology it is struggling to finish work on the plant which has hampered the expansion of production.

Only days after the Riyadh meeting, Putin ordered the govt to draw up rules for re-entry and opened the door to the return of Western companies.

Russia and China remain close, but Putin has been careful to continue to build up his own block of support to counterbalance China’s dominate position in the relationship. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is travelling constantly in Asia, Latin America and Africa to meet with the leaders of Russia’s so-called friendly countries and Putin has been on trips to places like Vietnam last year, traditionally seen to be in China’s sphere of influence.

Famous for being more of an opportunistic tactician than a long-term strategist, an alliance between Russia and the US in the Arctic could prove very useful to Putin as he strives to develop his “multipolar world.”