The article considers the international-political aspect of China's energy cooperation with Western Arctic states against the background of changing conditions in the 2010s and early 2020s. Under favourable conditions from the late 2000s up to 2018, China managed to gain access to upstream projects in Iceland (Dreki area project), Danish Greenland (Isua and Kuanersok projects) and the United States of America (Alaska LNG). Cooperation with Norway in the Jan Mayen area became impossible due to the cooling of relations after the "Nobel incident". A characteristic feature of Chinese investment activity in the Arctic region is the fact that its drivers were state-owned corporations. In 2018-2019, favourable conditions for Chinese activity in the Arctic region were replaced by unfavourable ones or "new reality". The "new reality" means changing conditions in China's relations with the Western Arctic States (the Arctic seven) that emerged in the late 2010s under the influence of new factors preventing further expansion of China's economic presence in the Arctic region. These factors should be grouped into external and internal ones, which will be discussed in this study.