China has played a central role in Donald Trump’s claim over Greenland. Trump has said that the US needed Greenland for security and claimed that Chinese ships were all around Greenland. When Trump during his first presidency first proposed to buy Greenland, it was allegedly after having met with an Australian mining developer who argued that his project unlike competing projects would create a non-Chinese controlled supply of rare earth elements (REE).
While both Chinese warships and immediate game changing Chinese investment were clearly not on the table when Donald Trump in his second presidency demanded Greenland, it does not mean that there have never and will never be Chinese presence in Greenland. This article gives a quick overview of the Chinese presence there has been in Greenland, and it shows how mutual trust between Denmark, Greenland and the US has worked to control Chinese presence. In a situation of no trust across the Atlantic, Trump’s fear of Chinese presence may come through.
Chinese interest in Greenland developed at a critical juncture for Greenland, and China was not uninvited. In 2009, Greenland gained sub-surface rights from Denmark. The government of Greenland saw mineral extraction as a potential way of getting more fiscal autonomy. Australian, Canadian and British mining companies which for some time had known about mining opportunities in Greenland and had exploration licenses developed prospects of potential mining projects which they would like to attract investors to. The license holders brought the project prospects to among others mining fairs in China, and when they saw a genuine interest from China, Greenlandic political leaders also actively engaged in attracting Chinese investments.
In order to develop a mine, mining developers need to develop a business case for potential investors. It needs to be possible to actually mine, ship and sell minerals, and there needs to be trust in sufficient political stability for the period it takes to return the large investment needed for developing a mine. This means that for any given known resource, there is almost always at least one geologist who will claim that a mine should be just on the verge of development. At Kringlerne in Southern Greenland, the place the Australian mining investor allegedly in contact with Donald Trump during his first presidency would like to develop a mine, there have been plans which many though would result in mines being built soon since the last half of the 19th century, but nothing has happened so far.
When China showed interest in mines in Greenland, they did like all other mining investors, they calculated the feasibility by developing plans and looking for further partners. Like all other Chinese mining companies, the mining companies showing an interest in Greenland were either state owned or semi-state owned. Many of their Chinese partners were firmly engaged in the Chinese state system, and the way to mobilize these partners was through political strategies. This implies that Chinese Arctic and mineral strategies played a role in the Chinese discussions about mining in Greenland, and it also led to worries outside the mining sector which did not know how to interpret it. It became clear that somewhere in the very large Chinese bureaucracy, there was interest in seeing Greenland as an important part of the not very well defined Silkroad on Ice. Whether and to which extent this was a coordinated effort or more a result of different parts of the Chinese bureaucracy wanting a place within the Chinese state system remained unclear. However, fear of Chinese engagement was the reason, Denmark provided finance for building much wanted airports in Greenland. Probably the American Exim bank’s decision to finance further exploration of a lead and zinc mine in Northeastern Greenland was also influenced by the presence of a Chinese state-owned enterprise which had been engaged in technical advice for years. These decisions resulted in what appears to be an actually coordinated top-level Chinese decision of not engaging in new projects in Greenland.
Co-operation between Denmark and the US may have ensured that China did not get a presence in Greenland. The fear of China as an alternative, made Denmark and the US do investments in Greenland that Greenland wanted, and which they would not otherwise have done. China pulled back, because it saw the diplomatic cost of engaging in Greenland was too high. Possibly, China had also learned that discussions of Greenlandic independence though sounding potentially destabilizing were in fact not a major worry, and would not be a major opportunity for China either. North Atlantic cooperation was strong and stable. Possibly the current European engagement can show that the risk/opportunity of Greenland becoming a power vacuum is limited, but the transatlantic distrust and Trump’s claim to control Greenland makes a new Chinese engagement more not less likely.
Jesper Willaing Zeuthen
Associate Professor
Department of Politics and Society
Aalborg University
Denmark
