The Northern Sea Route in Russian-Chinese Relations: Economic Rapprochement and Normative Distancing

The development of the Northern Sea Route has ceased to be an exclusively Russian national project and has become a space for the intersection of the normative, political, and economic interests of external actors, primarily China. Beijing's increased attention to Arctic communications within the framework of the "Polar Silk Road" concept is shaping a new configuration of international interaction, in which the Northern Sea Route (NSR) is becoming an object not only of economic development but also of political and legal competition. The subject of this study is the influence of Chinese participation on the parameters of the NSR's use regime and how Russian-Chinese interaction is reflected in the formation of rules for access and route management. The goal of the study is to identify the mechanisms through which Chinese economic and regulatory practices are changing the nature of emerging NSR operational regimes and the limits of Russian jurisdictional autonomy. The methodological framework incorporates elements of discursive institutionalism and critical geopolitics, allowing for the tracing of competing interpretations of the NSR's status and an assessment of how the political attitudes of the parties influence the development of the route's legal regime. The analysis revealed that Chinese participation is consolidated not through the creation of sustainable joint institutions, but through three channels: logistics projects, interpretation of maritime law, and investment and technological solutions. These areas form an asymmetrical model of interaction, in which economic cooperation is combined with Beijing's maintaining political distance. It is shown that the gap in regulatory approaches between Russia and China limits the depth of bilateral coordination and reinforces the fragmentation of the emerging NSR operational regime. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the identified mechanisms can be used to assess the risks of route internationalization and develop adaptive management strategies within the framework of Russian Arctic policy. The final conclusion is that the NSR's development prospects depend on the ability of Moscow and Beijing to agree on key access and regulatory parameters in the context of the transformation of the global political architecture.