China will closely monitor developments in Greenland as it seeks to become an important player in Arctic affairs. Still, Beijing is unlikely to respond with any major action in the near future to counter US President Donald Trump’s bid to annex the island, analysts said.
“The Arctic is certainly a central matter for policy for China, and they know it’s going to be important in the future, especially with climate change,” said Eurasia Group’s China practice head, David Meale.
In his escalated threats to take control of Greenland for the US, Trump has repeatedly cited the increasing presence of China and Russia in the Arctic as justifications for his plans. He has been moving to strengthen American dominance in the western hemisphere as part of his new national security strategy announced last month.
“China is certainly absorbing this and thinking very carefully about it,” Meale said. “Being singled out in that way in the context of the Arctic has to register.”
China has pushed back against Trump’s warnings about its growing influence in the Arctic. Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference on Thursday that “the so-called ‘China threat’ was groundless”, and that China opposed “fabricating baseless narratives and using China as a pretext for seeking selfish gains”.
Beijing’s reaction to Trump’s push to seize Greenland has been relatively muted compared to its strong condemnation of US actions against Venezuela.
That reflects that Greenland is a “novel issue” for China, Meale said, while Beijing already had “very established views” and a “strong relationship” with Venezuela over many years.
Meale, who was previously the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Beijing, also said that he did not expect “anything dramatic” to happen with China over Greenland.
“I think China is focused on maintaining its constructive relationship at the moment with the United States and does not see a need to disrupt that over Greenland,” he said.
Beijing will “quietly track” developments in the Arctic, given its long-standing interest in securing future shipping routes under its Polar Silk Road concept, according to David Zhang, a macroeconomics and policy analyst at Trivium China.
Beijing officially coined the term Polar Silk Road in a 2018 white paper named China’s Arctic Policy, in which it stated that the country was an “important stakeholder in Arctic affairs”, and that as global warming led to the melting of ice and snow, it aimed to “work with all parties” to build a Polar Silk Road by developing the Arctic shipping routes.
Heightened attention on the Arctic meant that Beijing’s “long game on shipping routes, resources and governance” would come under sharper scrutiny, said Lizzi C. Lee, a Fellow on Chinese Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Centre for China Analysis.
But Trump’s Greenland quest, if successful, would reinforce Beijing’s view that “strategic geography is increasingly being weaponised”, strengthening its efforts to indirectly “hedge” through Russia, Global South infrastructure deals and more “proactive diversification” in areas including trade, investment and energy, she said.
“It would also deepen China’s sense that the democratic system is fragmenting, creating openings to court Europe and other traditional US allies,” said Lee.
Still, Washington’s willingness to “strong-arm allies or unsettle Nato cohesion” would be seen in China as “strategically beneficial” and “outweigh any direct concern about US control over Greenland”, said Trivium’s Zhang. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
