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Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the sanctions that followed, have contributed to Russia’s turn to the east in order to find partners for its Arctic pro- jects. This development has been further powered by Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine since 2022. This study examines the Russian relationship to China in the Arctic through an analysis of Russian online news texts. Using framing theo- ry, the study aims to investigate how Russian media is portraying China as an Arctic player and trace possible changes between a three-year period before and after 2014.

The study showed that the overall most common framings of China in the Arctic are China as a pioneer, China as a partner and China as a threat to ’the west’. The most notable change between the period before and after 2014 is the vast increase in news texts framing China as a threat to, or feared by, America and European countries. The Russian texts conveying this framing are almost ex- clusively based on American/European articles and statements that depict Chi- na and often Russia as threats or opponents in the Arctic. Among the texts in- cluded in the study, very few were found to promote a critical view of China from a Russian perspective. The ones that did were published shortly after China became a permanent observer in the Arctic Council in 2013 and include an emphasis on the distinction between Arctic states and non-Arctic states. Furt- her, the study indicated existing rivaling views of Russia and China on the Ar- ctic. While Russia promotes a national/regional perspective on the Arctic to stress the priority of the Arctic states, China opts for a global perspective on the Arctic to motivate a stronger involvement of non-Arctic states.