President Donald Trump continues to push for the U.S. to take over the autonomous territory of Greenland, a goal he calls an “absolute necessity,” and has refused to rule out economic or military coercion toward that end. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated this week that Trump’s statements are “not a joke,” and said that the proposal is driven by concern that China could establish commercial facilities on the island that it could later militarize.
The Greenland issue had already attracted considerable amount of attention from the Chinese side. Shi Guannan, an assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, wrote at the start of January that Trump’s “seemingly absurd and rash ‘island-buying farce’” is “highly unrealistic.” He added that Trump will likely “rely on more interventionist and coercive methods” that will “exacerbate the militarization of the Arctic region and further worsen the security situation there.” Diao Daming, a professor at the Renmin University, told the Global Times that “seizing more territories” might align with Trump’s America-First ideology, but “the global order and the international system would be deeply interrupted and fall into greater chaos.” In his 66° North Substack at the end of December, Lukas Wahden compiled other critical reactions to Trump’s purported plans for Greenland from China’s state media and blogosphere:
In China’s comparatively [vs Russia’s] more censored mediascape, reactions to Trump’s post were less colourful. In the Global Times, Cui Hongjian 崔洪建, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, expressed his view that Denmark’s increase of defence expenditures on Greenland were still motivated primarily “by the Russia-Ukraine war.” The Renmin Ribao (人民日报) reminded its readers that, in 2019, Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland had been dismissed by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as “ridiculous’.“ The Jingji Ribao (经济日报), on the other hand, proposed that Trump’s proposal was sincere, and motivated by a U.S. interest in strategic waterways, resources, and military advantages.
Guangdong’s Nanfang Ribao (南方日报) called Trump’s advances “absurd” and pointed to them as “evidence” that Washington was stuck in “Cold War thinking”, with “hegemony” inscribed deep in the country’s “bone marrow.” A commentary in the Beijing Ribao (北京日报) suggested that Trump was serious about the proposed territorial expansion, which would turn the U.S. into the world’s largest country by territory, and that the West would be “fuming at the mouth” if China were to “disregard international law” in a similar manner. Referring to Denmark as the “United States’ little follower”, the paper concluded that “being an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but being an ally of the United States is deadly.”
Within China’s slightly more dynamic blogosphere, however, commentary on Greenland was slightly less monotonous – and often drew comparisons to Ukraine. For example, Dongyu Ji (东域记), a defence microblog run by a self-declared “former PLA Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Officer”, wrote: “In a sense, Trump and Putin are similar as heads of state, that is, they both have an irresistible greed for key foreign territories. Trump’s greed comes from the family business spirit inherited from American real estate developers, while Putin’s greed comes from the plundering tradition of the Russian Empire. […] No wonder Trump is always so fascinated by Putin. Maybe it’s because these two people like to seize other people’s land in their bones. Trump, at 78 years, is really too old. Even in this era, he is still obsessed with land.” A blogger from Hubei expressed surprise that “Trump’s appetite [was] even larger than Putin’s.” And a technology blogger from Chongqing suggested that Trump may even be “jealous” of Russia’s land grab in Ukraine, and thus incentivised to expand the American landmass by all means necessary. [Source]
Many observers have also argued that Trump misreads the regional dynamics involving Greenland, Denmark, China, and the U.S. In a piece for the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies this week titled “Seizing Greenland Is Worse Than a Bad Deal,” Otto Svendsen wrote that “Trump’s comments have highlighted fissures in the contentious relationship between Nuuk and Copenhagen, and likely accelerated Greenland’s independence trajectory,” which is an “outcome [that] may revive Chinese overtures toward the territory.” (Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.) Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede emphasized, “Greenlanders don’t want to be Danish, and they don’t want to be American. They want to be Greenlandic.” Pipaluk Lynge, a member of Greenland’s parliament, called Donald Trump Jr.’s recent visit to the island “staged,” without any access for journalists, and said that some locals “took pictures giving him [the] finger at the airport.”
Meanwhile, China’s relations with Greenland have reportedly been dwindling in recent years. Patrik Andersson, an analyst at the Swedish National China Centre focusing on Chinese mining in the Arctic, argued under the headline “China already left – so what is Trump’s Greenland gambit about?” that Chinese engagement has been at least as much a product of Greenland’s own pursuit of its development goals as of any Chinese strategy to boost its geostrategic leverage in the region.
Chinese companies have also been involved in mineral exploration projects in Greenland at various times. However, either these companies lost interest, or the Greenlandic government halted the projects. The most notable example is the Kvanefjeld rare earth exploration project, in which the Chinese company Shenghe Resources acquired a stake. This project has been put on hold due to environmental concerns and there is little prospect of resuming in the coming years.
While some parts of the Chinese bureaucracy have shown an interest in Greenland for its mineral resources and geostrategic location, viewing these investments purely as attempts to claim Greenland’s minerals or secure a strategic foothold in the Arctic oversimplifies the situation. These efforts were probably also driven by Greenland’s active courting of Chinese investment. Greenland, for example, regularly attended the annual China Mining Conference in Tianjin and sent business delegations to China.
Despite declaring itself to be “open for business”, however, Greenland has struggled to attract foreign investment. In this context, courting China has proved a successful strategy for Nuuk, as it has put pressure on Europe and the United States to offer their own investments to counter Chinese proposals. Since 2019, the US has reopened its consulate in Nuuk, collaborated with Greenland on mineral exploration and provided packages of economic aid to the island. [Source]
At China-US Focus, Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa and Franz Jessen sketched out how China might react to Trump’s actions in a “contest” in which both sides “challenge international norms in pursuit of dominance, reshaping the region into an increasingly disputed geopolitical arena.” Marc Lanteigne, a political science professor at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromso, told the South China Morning Post, “It is probable that both Russia and China will seek to further develop Arctic military activities, separately and in unison, should Greenland fall more directly under US interests.”
Another major consequence would likely be increased Chinese pressure over Taiwan, as Politico’s China Watcher newsletter highlighted on Thursday. “On what principled basis can [the U.S.] object when China does the same thing in the Western Pacific—I would imagine Chinese and Russian propagandists are already making hay of his comments to this effect,” said Hal Brands, a former official under the Obama administration. The Taiwanese government has declined to formally comment on the matter, but Trump’s comments on Greenland “remind us of the uncertainty that comes with Trump 2.0,” former Taiwan presidential spokesperson Kolas Yotaka said. In mid-January, Antoni Slodkowski and James Pomfret at Reuters shared reactions from Chinese commentators drawing parallels between Greenland and Taiwan:
"If Greenland is annexed by the United States, China must take Taiwan," wrote Wang Jiangyu, a professor of law at City University of Hong Kong, on microblog site Weibo.
One commentator on a blog run by Chinese search engine Baidu said that if Trump does move on Greenland, China should "seize the opportunity to take back Taiwan".
"Trump seems to be serious, so we too should see what we could get from this," the person, writing as "Hongtu Shumeng" wrote.
Chen Fei, an associate professor at Central China Normal University’s School of Politics and International Studies, wrote on Chinese news portal NetEase that just like Greenland for Trump, Taiwan was a core security interest for China.
But the two issues are not the same as what Trump is doing is directly threatening another country’s sovereignty, he added.
"Taiwan is China’s intrinsic territory and a pure internal Chinese matter. It has nothing to do with another country’s sovereignty." [sic] [Source]
