US plans to reopen Greenland consulate to counteract China, Russia influence in the Arctic region

The US’ plan to reopen a consulate in Greenland is part of American efforts to check the presence of China and Russia in the Arctic, a government official said.

The reopening of the consulate in the self-governing territory of Denmark and US$12 million funding for mining and renewable energy projects in the area represent Washington’s efforts to increase engagement with “Western Arctic states” and a matter of “good old-fashioned diplomatic statecraft”, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

The US opened the consulate in Nuuk, on Greenland’s west coast, in 1940 as part of operations that supported the US military during World War II, and it closed in 1953.

In January 2018, the Chinese government issued a white paper detailing plans for the Arctic and announced intentions to participate in the region’s development as a “near-Arctic state”. The paper said Beijing hoped to “jointly build a ‘Polar Silk Road’ and facilitate connectivity and sustainable economic and social development of the Arctic”.

The US State Department official said China’s polar region plan was “disconcerting because the PRC’s behaviour outside the Arctic often disregards international norms, as it has in the South China Sea, for example”.

“We believe the United States, in partnership with the Kingdom of Denmark and other Western Arctic states, are best positioned to be able to … keep the region one that’s free from conflict, and unfortunately, that is not the agenda that some of the other geopolitical players, notably China, necessarily has,” the official said.