Greenland security agreement may restrict China’s Arctic role, experts say
A new security agreement involving the United States, Denmark and Greenland could limit China’s access to projects and partnerships on the resource-rich island, according to Chinese analysts. The experts differed on the scale of the impact, while agreeing that the deal could deepen the Arctic’s security focus.
A new security agreement between the United States, Denmark and Greenland could reduce China’s room for economic and infrastructure cooperation in Greenland, according to Chinese experts cited by the South China Morning Post. The agreement, signed on Tuesday, expands the US military role on the autonomous Danish territory while keeping Greenland under Danish control. It restricts military installations and sustained military activity by non-Nato states without mutual agreement, and limits non-aligned foreign investment in resource extraction and critical infrastructure.
The arrangements are significant because Greenland has large undeveloped deposits of rare earth elements and other minerals, including iron ore, graphite, tungsten, palladium, vanadium, zinc, gold, uranium and copper. The United States and its allies are seeking to develop supply chains for critical minerals to reduce their dependence on China. Zhang Yao, a senior fellow at the Shanghai Centre for RimPac Strategic and International Studies, said the agreement appeared to take China into account.
He said Danish authorities could become more cautious about cooperating with Chinese companies in order to avoid provoking Washington. Zhao Long of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies offered a more limited assessment. He said Chinese commercial activity in Greenland was already small and that companies did not regard the island as a priority because of commercial and operational constraints.
China’s 2018 Arctic policy describes the country as a “near-Arctic state” and identifies interests including research, environmental protection, shipping, resource development and regional governance. Western governments have become more sceptical of Chinese Arctic activity, while a previous proposed Chinese acquisition of a gold mine in Canada’s Arctic was blocked by Ottawa. The experts said the agreement was unlikely to immediately disrupt China’s cooperation with Russia, which is concentrated on shipping routes and energy projects on the Russian and European side of the Arctic.
They differed on whether stronger US and Nato involvement would push Beijing and Moscow closer, with one saying it could encourage cooperation and another attributing their partnership mainly to existing strategic and economic interests.
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