That’s a little hyperbolic. China is fundamentally not an Arctic nation. There is just no way China can become as vested in arctic commerce and icebreaker dominance as Russia or Finland.
They are looking to open trade route by the North East route, which is up the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, follow a line not far from the Russian coast, arriving in ports in northern Russia, or into northern Europe. Then follow the route back. The distance is shorter, you don't need to go through the Suez Canal which has exorbitant passage fees, pass through congested areas such as the Singapore Straits, you don't have to pass through the Indian Ocean where you have India and Australia.
The negatives is that some major liners refuse to this route, and its most accessible during summer. But you may still need an ice breaker to cut through a path along the ice, and the Russians can charge a fee for the ice breaker use.
The most important part here is Russia has oil and LNG reserves are right up the north, especially the Yamal complex. While oil and gas from Russia will be shipped to China through pipelines, they will also need LNG carriers to transport the gas from Yamal to the Far East, not just China, but S. Korea and Japan as well. These specialized LNG carriers will have to be spearheaded by ice breakers and they also feature some ice breaking capability of their own.
So its obvious at this point, for alternative routes to Europe and to Russia, the North East Arctic Sea route will be used, and some of these work will be covered by Chinese ice breakers so you don't have to use Russian ice breakers all the way.
This route has already begun to be operational.
