Chinese Policy in the Arctic: Denmark/ Greenland
The promising (Green) Land and China
After launching scientific projects in Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland, China sought to do the same in a fifth Arctic region: Denmark’s autonomous island of Greenland. Stretching over more than 2.2 million square kilometres in the Arctic Circle, Greenland is the world’s largest island. Scarce with people, but fraught with resources, the polar region is included in China’s “strategic new domain”. With geopolitics and climate change intertwining, Greenland holds a unique place in China’s Arctic strategy. China could play a vital role in the development of Greenland’s three industries (mining, fishing, and tourism), while cooperation with Greenland could advance China’s self-proclaimed status as a “near-Arctic State”, which argues that atmospheric changes in the Arctic have been distorting rainfall patterns in China, disrupting agricultural production and flooding major cities in China.
Looming climate change and booming strategic opportunities
One of the places most affected by climate change, Greenland has turned into ground zero for renewed geopolitical competition. With temperatures having warmed up four times faster than the rest of the globe since 1979, melting glaciers have opened trade routes and resource excavation opportunities. Indeed, Greenland’s ice sheet has lost 4.7 million billion litres of water since 2002, which is believed to have independently contributed to a rise in sea level of 1.2 centimetre. The pure water contained in icebergs has become blue gold, bottled and sold for up to 12 euros. Furthermore, Greenland’s melting ice produces a billion tons of glacial rock flour per year, a silt-rich mud that could make arid lands fertile and align with China’s forestry programs to combat climate-driven desertification. The Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources quickly noticed Greenland’s ideal position, ‘at the front line of global warming’.
A differentiated approach of the Polar Silk Road Policy fuelling worries of hidden intentions
Unlike Antarctica, the Arctic Circle is controlled by sovereign nations, at the crux of geopolitical tensions between regional powers. Subsequently, China tries to woo local populations, concerned by drastic climate changes and large-scale receding of the ice sheet, through advanced technologies and scientific research stations. Fearing that direct engagement from the PRC’s government would upset circumpolar nations, Chinese experts have suggested since 2012 to make outreach efforts in Arctic affairs through enterprises, civil society, and scientific research institutions. Yet, most infrastructures built in the Arctic can serve both civilian and military purposes.
For instance, in 2017 Chinapledged to build asatellite dish antenna ground station for remote sensing in Nuuk to ‘serve the people of Greenland, improve climate change research and serve China’s national strategy’. More than 100 Chinese visitors attended a launching ceremony of the20,000-square-foot research facility in Kangerlussuaq on May 30, 2017. Chinese Tourist Operator Souluniq, which prides itself on organising regular trips to the Arctic and Antarctica for members of the business elite (including prominent members of academia, diplomats, and military officials), used a “camouflaging” tactic embedded in a tourist trip to lay the groundwork. Kept in the dark, Greenland’s Foreign Affairs Office and Greenland’s Parliament only found out in October 2017, whereas the ‘official launching ceremony’ had immediately been covered by Sciencenet, a web portal maintained by the China Science Daily Publishing House, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other state scientific organisations. While the strategic significance ofgathering military data and building China’s polar power was clearly reported to domestic audiences, China’s messaging of its scientific research to foreign audiences downplayed the importance of the ceremony to China’s national interest in the Arctic. This distortion is in line with the duplicity of China’s discourse-management tactics of differentiating endo- and exo-propaganda.
Map courtesy of Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal.
The contending perception of China’s visible hand in Nuuk and Copenhagen
Greenland’s history as a former Danish colony until 1953 underlies the political sensitivity of its relationship with Denmark. Amid a question of independence that has permeated Greenlandic politics, Greenland’s untapped resources could propel the country toward economic self-sufficiency. While Greenland relies on a yearly grant from Denmark which makes up more than half of the island’s public budget, China is already one of Greenland’s biggest trade partners, purchasing around 40% of Greenland’s seafood exports. As a result, Denmark’s transatlantic interests in the Arctic do not necessarily coincide with Greenland’s.
China: treading on cracking thin ice to gain geostrategic leverage in Greenland
An independent Greenland would be geopolitically and commercially beneficial to China. At the helm of an extremely asymmetric relationship, China could negotiate for Greenland’s support over the Arctic governance, insofar as Greenland’s independence would entail the loss of Denmark’s status as an Arctic state. China has been cautious in its official communications to avoid any perception of support for Greenland’s independence, emphasising that Greenland ‘should follow the foreign policy upheld by Denmark’. In keeping with Laozi’s non-action principle, China’s low-profile messaging does not jeopardise bilateral relations with Denmark, while letting Greenland approach its sphere of influence. Leading Chinese polar scholars also argue that ‘the Danish government recognizes the objective inevitability of Greenland’s independence’, subsequently pushing for China to get involved in polar affairs to fill the Arctic’s eventual power vacuum. Respecting the principle of non-interference is essential for China to gradually gain trust in Greenland, safeguard its bilateral relationship with Denmark (whose position is also strategic in the Belt and Road Initiative), and defend its own state sovereignty from foreign interference.
Greenland’s dilemma for the long road to independence
Overall, Greenland’s population shows a generally positive attitude toward engagement with China but nurtures an ambivalent relationship toward China’s interest in the Arctic region. For Greenland, China is an important partner and a constructive force in reducing economic dependence on Danish subsidies and fulfilling its wish for political independence. Nevertheless, Greenlandic politicians show reservations due to a fear of economic dependency, with evidence of debt-trap scenarios in Sri Lanka and African countries. Moreover, Greenland aims at diversifying its partners to intensify a bidding competition, while giving preference to investors who ‘have the same values on human rights’.
Denmark’s transatlantic and paternalistic interests in post-colonial Greenland
While local politicians are often receptive towards cooperation with China, Danish interests generate more opposition, in as much as Denmark needs Greenland to be seen as a stakeholder in Arctic defence. Stemming from mere talks of Chinese deals in Greenland, the dreaded ‘China Threat Theory’ focuses on China’s ability to capitalise on stirrings of independence, potentially infringing upon the sovereignty of Denmark. The Kingdom of Denmark’s interventions in Greenland’s foreign affairs and military security policies hinder the completion of China’s 2018 “Polar Silk Road”, which entails building strategic infrastructure in the Arctic, as well as bolster frustration in Nuuk over paternalistic decision-making.
According to the Act on Greenland Self-Government of 2009, the legal underpinning of Greenland’s autonomy, the Realm of Denmark is competent to handle foreign affairs and security policy matters. In 2016, Hong Kong-based company General Nice considered buying the Kangilinnguit naval base, established by the U.S. Navy in 1942. Closed in 2014, the Danish defence ministry rekindled interest in the ‘strategic and logistic’ base, pretexting a military need for the disused station to prevent Chine acquisitions in Greenland. It is believed that Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, was personally involved in the process, failing to inform Naalakkersuisut, Greenland Self-Rule authorities. Although Danish intelligence has warned against China’s visible hand in the Arctic for years, Denmark has been avoiding confrontation. Yet another example occurred in 2019 when Greenland prequalified the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to build two airports. Although Greenlandic politicians warned against Denmark’s double standards and biased assessment of “security”, concerns in Copenhagen and Washington led to a Danish-Greenlandic Arctic investment agreement, coercing the Chinese state-owned company to withdraw its bid. Danish efforts to keep China out prompted a political crisis in Greenland with the pro-independence Partii Naleraq quitting the governing coalition in protest. The obstruction to Chinese investments perpetuated by the Danish government’s oversight of foreign affairs brings to the surface the postcolonial issue and the limitations of self-rule status.
Wider implications for Chinese influence in the Arctic
Greenland at the heart of the “Warming War”
Former U.S. President Trump’s stated interest in considering a purchase of Greenland in 2019, as well as the re-opening of a U.S Consulate in Nuuk in 2020, can be interpreted as worries that Greenland’s mining industry might serve as a Trojan horse for Chinese influence in the High North and a springboard for a broader political partnership. The United States' hardened stance is a growing obstacle to China’s presence in Greenland, with Washington seeing China’s rise as a zero-sum process, which comes at the expense of their own interests in Greenland.
Amid escalating tensions in the Arctic, the European Commission is set to implement an office in Greenland in 2023, whereas the United States will be establishing an “ambassador-at-large” embodying its new Arctic strategy. The United States considers Greenland to be a critical component of the American sphere of influence, as coined by the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. A strategic outpost vital to U.S. national security during World War II and the Cold War, Greenland still hosts the Thule radar station, built in 1951 to defend against possible Soviet attacks on North America. In January 2023, the U.S. Air Force deployed its 5th generation F35 fighter jet to Greenland for the first time in history, during a two-week North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Operation Noble Defender. Meanwhile, Canada and Denmark have decided to purchase F-35A fighter jets to deploy them in the Far North temporarily.
Essential to missile defence and a natural host for polar diplomacy, Greenland is linked to NATO, as a self-governing part of Denmark. At the centre of great power struggles over the Arctic, Greenland ‘could get so much more out of the United States and China if [it] can just find a way to make the superpower countries play against each other’ as former Greenlandic Prime Minister Aleqa Hammond puts it.
Stalled mining projects and other setbacks for China’s foothold in Greenland
China’s attempts to assert influence in Greenland via the “Polar Silk Road” may have been overestimated, inasmuch as Chinese economic investments in Greenland have been put on hold or terminated preliminarily. A flagship iron-ore project spearheaded by Chinese investors was cancelled in 2021 due to inactivity at the mine site and failure to make guarantee payments. Acquired by General Nice Resources Hong Kong Ltd in 2015, the license would have enabled the hire of 2000 Chinese workers for the construction and the production of 15 million metric tons of iron ore a year. The prospect triggered debates over the ‘Large-Scale Projects Acts’, aimed at facilitating the use of foreign labour. Bad publicity resulting from the ‘large-scale’ controversy led to the downfall of Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist’s government and likely kept Chinese investors at bay, with U.S investments phasing out the Polar Silk Road’s waning fortunes.
The election of the left-leaning Inuit Ataqatigiit party in April 2021 put brakes on the development of another mining project. The Australian mining firm Greenland Mineral and Energy (GME) and its Chinese partner Shenghe Resources had invested more than 100 million dollars in Kuannersuit, one of the world’s biggest rare earth deposits. China is the world’s biggest rare earth metal producer, accounting for more than 90% of global production, and 60% of global consumption. In an effort to safeguard China’s rare-earth monopoly, Shenghe Resources, and its state-linked major shareholders had secured a 12.5% stake in GME, with the agreement mentioning the participation could increase to 60%. The project had secured preliminary approval in 2020, but in November 2021, Greenland passed a zero-tolerance legislation restricting the mining and exploration of uranium, as well as other radioactive minerals such as thorium. Tantamount to a Copernican Revolution for the extractive industry, the paradigm shift followed a ban on oil exploration in July 2021.
Although the crux of the issue for Greenland’s socialist-led government is uranium mining, the overall landscape has turned less welcoming to Chinese investment. The Greenlandic environmentalist majority has dimmed the prospects of foreign-invested ventures to push for a greener Greenland. The only current direct Chinese presence in Greenland consists of around 50 migrant workers in the fishing industry. Although mining is Greenland’s most straightforward pathway to economic independence, the vicissitudes of climate geopolitics seem to thwart the mining cooperation, as well as China’s ambition to be recognized as a circumpolar power.