Trump Gang Theft of Greenland: View from China

"If the United States succeeds in "owning" Greenland, it will trigger a catastrophic chain reaction"--Zheng Ge. A somewhat long read.

Yes, Trump has coveted Greenland since 2019 and likely much earlier.

A very detailed look at how the Trump Gang’s theft of Greenland will play out internationally as seen from the Chinese perspective. Published by Guancha on 10 January, the author Zheng Ge is a Professor and doctoral supervisor of Kaiyuan Law School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This is a long read so let’s dive in:

In 2019, Trump publicly announced that he would "buy" Greenland, causing a global uproar. Recently, this issue has been raised by Trump again in a more aggressive tone and has become an important issue for the United States to move forward after the abduction of Venezuelan President Maduro. The Danish and Greenland authorities denounced it as "absurd", and international public opinion mostly regarded it as a political farce. However, this seemingly bizarre event is no accident—it is a fuse that has detonated a geostrategic impulse buried for a century and a half and dragged the international legal order of the 21st century into a fundamental crisis of legitimacy.

Greenland is not an ordinary island. The world’s largest island of 2.17 million square kilometers has a population of only about 56,000, of which 89% are Inuit, and only a few are Danes and other Europeans. [Detailed ice-penetrating radar studies have recently shown Greenland’s foundation to be three major islands hidden under its massive icecap.] It guards the GIUK gap between North America and Europe (Greenland-Iceland-UK), which is the main conduit for the Russian Northern Fleet into the Atlantic Ocean and is the northern pillar of the US ballistic missile warning system.

As the Arctic sea ice melts, the commercial value of the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route has surged, and Greenland has changed from a strategic barrier to a strategic corridor. Under the ice sheet, there is one of the world’s largest undeveloped rare earth deposits, as well as key minerals such as uranium and zinc. In the context of global supply chain restructuring, these resources are directly related to the balance of technology and industrial competition between major powers.

The United States coveted Greenland after Seward bought Alaska in 1867. In 1946, the Truman administration officially offered Denmark $100 million. During the Cold War, the United States gained a long-term military presence under NATO through the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement, and Thule Air Base (now Pitupik Space Base) remains the core node of the U.S. space surveillance network. Trump’s “island purchase” remarks are nothing more than the naked business logic of the strategic planning in the Pentagon briefing. Beneath its absurd shell is a crude challenge to the basic norms of modern international relations.

1. The Maze of Sovereignty: When the Right to Self-Determination Encounters the “Danish Lock”

Greenland’s legal status is a unique “history of the gradual evolution of sovereignty”. In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in Denmark v. Norwegian Eastern Greenland that Denmark had valid sovereignty over the entire island. After World War II, Greenland became part of the Kingdom of Denmark from a colony, and the Autonomy Act of 2009 pushed it to a “high degree of autonomy:” almost all matters except foreign affairs, defense, security and monetary policy were transferred to the Greenland Autonomous Government.

However, this “high degree of autonomy” is embedded within a delicate and tense legal framework. Article 21 of the bill sets up a complex process for independence: the Greenland parliament proposes → pass a referendum→ negotiate an agreement with the Danish government→ and finally approve it by the Danish parliament. This means that Greenland’s independence is not a unilateral act, and its final decision remains in the hands of the Danish Parliament. This dual mechanism of “right to self-determination + consent of the mother country” has been criticized as a “conditional right to self-determination”.

What is more realistic is the “golden handcuffs” of economic dependence. Denmark’s annual “block allocation” accounts for about 60% of Greenland’s public budget. Although the Autonomy Act provides for a reduction in allocations when resource revenues are met, Greenland’s fragile single economy (dependent on fisheries), high development costs and lack of infrastructure make it extremely difficult to achieve financial self-sufficiency in the short term. Deep economic dependence constitutes the strongest practical constraint on the claim of complete independence.

The “embedded existence” of the United States constitutes the third layer of tension. The 1951 agreement gave the United States near-exclusive jurisdiction in the “defense zone”, and the Pitufik base became a “country within a country”. The Cold War-era “Iceworm Project” even secretly studied the deployment of nuclear missiles under ice sheets, and the crash of the B-52 nuclear bomber in 1968 exposed Denmark’s inability to regulate U.S. military activities. This tripartite co-governance pattern of “Denmark has de jure sovereignty, the United States exercises substantive control, and Greenland is responsible for internal governance” makes Greenland’s future inseparable from the attitude of the United States.

2. Trump’s strategy: the erosion of international norms by “the art of trading”

The Trump administration’s Greenland strategy is essentially a crude transplant of the business negotiation logic described in “The Art of Dealing” into the field of international politics, and its core is to reshape the existing rules and norms of the game by actively creating crises and exercising extreme pressure. This strategy was first manifested as a high-impact agenda-setting operation: by publicly talking about “buying” Greenland, Trump succeeded in instantly detonating this long-standing geopolitical issue into global focus.

This “real exaggeration” has forced Denmark, which originally had sovereignty, and Greenland, which enjoys autonomy, to become passive in the field of public opinion, and from territorial managers to asset holders who seem to be waiting for a price, thus suffering from moral and psychological pressure. This move clearly conveys that the United States has regarded Greenland as an open issue on its national security agenda and requires relevant parties to respond in accordance with the framework and rhythm set by the United States.

In terms of specific pressure methods, the Trump administration has skillfully used multiple levers. At the security level, it constantly exaggerates Denmark’s defense spending falling short of NATO standards and suggests that the United States assumes the primary responsibility for protecting Greenland while Denmark is underinvested, creating an excuse for the United States to seek more direct control.

On the economic level, on the one hand, Greenland is portrayed as a “financial burden” for Denmark, suggesting that the latter may be happy to unload this burden; on the other hand, it throws bait to Greenland to invest in infrastructure and develop critical minerals, aiming to create internal interest divergence, weaken its centripetal force against Denmark and seek a consensus base for complete independence.

What is even more hidden and far-reaching is the “legal war” it launched. The Trump team re-hyped up the vague provisions of the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement, such as the expression “the current danger is past”, and tried to extend the so-called “dangerous” state indefinitely under the new narrative of the “Sino-Russian Arctic threat”, so as to expand the US military presence in Greenland and even seek some kind of “co-governance” arrangement to prepare a legal basis.

What is particularly dangerous is that its strategy deliberately invokes the historical precedents of the United States to purchase Louisiana, Alaska and other territories, trying to quietly create an atmosphere in the international cognition that “sovereign territorial transactions are uncommon but not impossible”, thereby eroding the principle of “sovereignty is not tradable”, which is one of the cornerstones of modern international relations.

The deep motivation of this strategy stems from the structural anxiety of the United States about the era of great power competition, and forms a logical closed loop: first, to deal with the increasingly active activities of China and Russia in the Arctic, to ensure that Greenland, a strategic point that guards the GIUK gap, is controlled and prevents it from being exploited by competitors; secondly, out of the need to “de-risk” to ensure the security of the critical mineral supply chain, the intention is to obtain Greenland’s rich rare earth resources to break the dependence on China’s supply chain; Finally, it is to consolidate absolute control of the North American air defense system and prevent Greenland from adopting a neutral or non-aligned policy due to independence in the future, thereby endangering the core security architecture of the United States.

3. China dimension: how to avoid strategic traps

For China, Greenland is a complex issue of resource security, polar governance, waterway rights and the balance of major powers. Chinese companies’ exploration of iron ore and lead-zinc ore in Greenland is a normal market behavior, but it has been “secured” by the US system as “infiltration” and “threat”, aiming to crowd out China and consolidate resource dominance.

China’s response must be based on the three principles of “legality, transparency and sustainability”: legitimacy—all activities strictly abide by Greenland, Danish law and international law, and respect Greenland’s decision-making sovereignty; Transparency-–strengthen ESG standard disclosure, communicate with local communities, hire local employees, and integrate corporate development with Greenland’s long-term goals. Sustainability—combine cooperation with the climate agenda and green transformation and show the image of a “development partner” in the fields of renewable energy and environmental resource development.

At the level of Arctic governance, China should adhere to the main channels of the Arctic Council, maintain the rule system with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the core, oppose the “inland waterlogging” of waterways, and ensure that peaceful use and commercial navigation are in the common international interest. At the same time, we will deepen bilateral cooperation with Russia, Norway and other countries, build a diversified cooperation network, and enhance policy resilience.

The key to strategic determination is: not to intervene in the tripartite game between the United States and Denmark, respect Danish sovereignty and Greenland’s right to self-determination; safeguarding legitimate rights and interests and freedom of navigation; avoid “reactive” confrontation and not be disturbed by US provocations. Invest in soft power to support Greenland’s climate change adaptation and capacity building and show the image of a “scientific collaborator”, in contrast to the United States’ focus on military security.

4. The next step of the United States is to judge: from “free association” to “sausage cutting”

The United States’ long-standing coveting of Greenland resurfaced in an open, commercial and highly provocative way during the Trump administration, and heated up again with his re-election in 2024. Although the open “purchase” of a sovereign state’s autonomous territory is almost far-fetched under modern international law and has been firmly rejected by Denmark and Greenland, the strategic impulse in U.S. policymaking circles has never subsided. Through the appearance of political clamor, the United States may plan and implement a series of progressive, risk-and-reward strategic paths in order to substantially gain control of Greenland or maximize its strategic influence.

These paths are not isolated from each other, but may be driven by the logic of “America First” and great power competition, which may form a composite strategy, the core characteristics of which can be summarized as “gradual penetration and multi-track stress testing under strategic ambiguity”. The ultimate goal is to create a long-term strategic posture that is absolutely beneficial to the United States on the bottom line of not triggering a complete rupture of alliances and a complete boycott by the international community.

The first potential path is to promote the conclusion of a “free association agreement”. This model follows the existing arrangements between the United States and the Pacific island nations of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, and aims to achieve “quasi-sovereign” transfers through legal wrapping. This path has some resonance with the Greenland people’s own pursuit of independence.

Specifically, the United States will provide long-term, large-scale economic assistance to Greenland and assume full responsibility for its defense and security in exchange for exclusive military presence, facility construction and freedom of movement on Greenland’s territory, and may enjoy priority or even exclusive rights in core areas such as Greenland’s foreign security policy, critical mineral resource development, and Arctic waterway management.

From a legal and technical point of view, this pathway barrier is relatively low, as it ostensibly respects Greenland’s right to self-determination with Denmark’s sovereign framework–- which theoretically needs to be approved by the Greenlandic people (via referendum) and the Danish Parliament. For some of Greenland’s political powers, which aspire to economic independence but cannot afford the cost of full independence, the huge financial transfusions and security guarantees provided by the United States are tempting, as if providing a “shortcut” to get rid of Denmark’s dependence.

However, its essence is to replace the old one with a new, deeper dependency, transforming Greenland from a highly autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark into a “protectorate” or “dependent state” that may be legally independent but highly dependent on the United States for defense, diplomacy and economic lifeline.

Although this move can circumvent the legal and moral condemnation of direct annexation, it will inevitably trigger strong backlash and deep concern from European allies, especially Denmark, fearing that the principle of sovereign equality within NATO will be eroded, and may attract strong opposition and countermeasures from Russia and China, which is seen as the resurrection of Cold War mentality and “neo-colonialism” in the Arctic.

The second, more subversive path is to take the initiative to promote Greenland towards “controlled independence”. The essence of this strategy is to exploit and manipulate the inherent demands for self-determination within Greenland. The United States will publicly “support the Greenlandic people’s right to pursue full self-determination” through multiple channels such as official statements, congressional actions, think tank public opinion and NGO activities, and at the same time draw a blueprint for economic prosperity and security after independence with the full support of the United States. Its commitments may include huge assistance during the transition period, a comprehensive “special partnership agreement” immediately after independence, and support for its rapid integration into the international financial system. The goal is to create a new country that has fallen politically, economically, and securely to the United States in all directions at the beginning of its founding.

This path relies entirely on the independent procedures set by Greenland’s 2009 Autonomy Act, which seems to respect the law but is actually a high-risk instrumental use. However, the biggest obstacle lies in Greenland’s public opinion and national identity. Several polls (such as data cited by The Guardian) show that while Greenlanders have mixed feelings about “final independence”, the proportion of people who support “joining the United States” is extremely low (only about 6%).

At the heart of Greenland’s national identity is “Greenland for Greenlanders”, stemming from its unique Inuit culture and historical relationship with Denmark, rather than plunging into the arms of another powerful country. If the United States acts too hastily, it may spark a nationalist backlash. What’s even more fatal is that if this move succeeds, it will be seen by Europe as a blatant destruction of the territorial integrity of U.S. allies, enough to destroy the alliance between the United States and Denmark and shake the foundation of NATO and even the entire transatlantic alliance, and its strategic cost is likely to be unbearable for the United States.

The third path, that is, escalating the “legal war” and carrying out gradual de facto control, is the most hidden and likely realistic operation that is currently happening. It does not pursue immediate changes in the form of sovereign law but uses the ambiguity of existing legal agreements to expand the actual presence and control of the United States in Greenland step by step through sustained, gradual actions, like “cutting sausages”.

Militarily, the United States can expand the size and scope of its garrison at the Pitufik (Thule) base, deploy more advanced weapons systems, and even extend its military presence to other strategic locations in the name of responding to the “Sino-Russian Arctic threat” in accordance with flexible provisions such as “common defense needs” in the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement.

Economically, through funds or large enterprises with U.S. government backgrounds, large-scale investment and control of Greenland’s exploration, mining and downstream industrial chain of key minerals such as rare earths and uranium ores, and at the same time invest in key infrastructure such as ports, airports, and communication networks, so that Greenland’s economic lifeline is deeply bound to U.S. capital. At the cognitive level, through systematic public opinion shaping, narratives such as “Denmark ignores Greenland’s development”, “the threat of external infiltration (referring to China and Russia) is imminent”, and “the United States is the only reliable partner” are exaggerated, while deeply cultivating Greenland’s local society and cultivating pro-American elites and public opinion.

The “brilliance” of this path lies in its low threshold and high cumulative effect: each step can be carried out under the cover of “implementation of existing agreements”, “normal business practices” or “people-to-people exchanges”, making it difficult for the Danish and Greenland authorities to launch a strong confrontation on every “small” progress. However, over the years, the military, economic and social influence of the United States in Greenland will form an irreversible “fait accompli” and structural dependence, and even if the legal sovereignty remains unchanged, Greenland will have to first weigh the interests and reactions of the United States when making any major decisions, and the essence of sovereignty has been hollowed out.

The fourth path, that is, to take forced military action or instigate internal events, is the least likely but most destructive ultimate option. In extreme scenarios, the United States may intervene directly militarily under the pretext of “preventing a security vacuum,” “protecting expatriates and assets,” or “at the legitimate request of internal law.” Although some analysts believe that it is not technically difficult to control key nodes in Greenland with the strength of the US military, this move is politically and legally equivalent to suicide.

It will blatantly violate the core principle of the UN Charter on the prohibition of the use of force against the territorial integrity of other countries, and if it targets the territory of NATO ally Denmark, it will directly trigger the collective defense clause of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, leading to the existential crisis of NATO, the cornerstone of Western security. The United States’ global leadership, international credibility and alliance system will collapse in an instant, falling into unprecedented isolation. Therefore, the real value of the “military option” mentioned by White House officials is not mainly in the actual plan of action, but in serving as a deterrent tool for extreme pressure to intimidate Denmark and Greenland and seize more leverage in negotiations to force the other side to make concessions on other paths.

Based on comprehensive research and judgment, the United States is most likely to adopt not any of the above single paths, but a composite strategy of “gradual penetration and stress testing under strategic ambiguity”. The heart of this strategy is to maintain maximum flexibility and deterrence. At the public level, the United States will continue to claim respect for Danish sovereignty and Greenland’s self-determination, while promoting its vision of “free association” or similar frameworks as a long-term blueprint in the name of “deepening partnership” and “promoting security and development in the Arctic.”

At the practical level, it will spare no effort to implement the “sausage-cutting” tactics of “legal warfare” and de facto control and continue to patiently expand its presence and influence in the fields of defense, economy, and cognition. At the same time, the United States will pay close attention to and skillfully use the political dynamics within Greenland, strengthen contacts with independent forces, influence its political agenda, and shape a political ecology beneficial to the United States from within. In addition, the United States may also tie the Greenland issue to a broader strategic game, such as linking it to the performance of Denmark and its European allies on issues such as NATO military spending sharing and China policy coordination, exerting compound pressure.

If this compound strategy continues, it may eventually lead to an unstable but highly favorable long-term balance pattern for the United States: legal sovereignty still belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark in form, and security and defense dominance is firmly in the hands of the United States. Economically, Greenland oscillates between Danish subsidies and American investment, but the United States gradually gains the upper hand with its capital and technological advantages; At the level of public opinion, Greenlandic society is complexly divided between independence demands, relations with Denmark, and dependence on the United States, but the direction and rhythm of the independence process will be increasingly deeply influenced by American factors.

Under this pattern, it will be more difficult for Greenland to achieve full and true independence, because it will not only need to overcome economic dependence, but may also mean losing US security and economic support; Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland will become increasingly “formalized” and “hollowed”, increasingly limited to managing internal social affairs, and marginalized in key areas that determine Greenland’s strategic destiny. This process will be gradual, full of diplomatic friction and legal controversy, but its potential direction, in the context of increasingly fierce competition among major powers, undoubtedly poses a serious and lasting challenge to the international legal order based on sovereign equality.

5. International Law Review: The Touchstone of the International Order

The Greenland issue has transcended the realm of mere geopolitical games and has evolved into a key litmus test for the resilience and effectiveness of the contemporary international legal order. The U.S. public intention to “take” Greenland and its potential strategic path are not an accidental diplomatic anomie or an isolated legal dispute, but a systematic and profound conflict with the post-war international legal order with the UN Charter at its core.

This conflict not only reveals the deep fragility of international law in restraining the “revisionist” [Outlaw] behavior of major powers but also exposes the crisis that legal principles may face overhead, instrumentalization, or even blatant trampling in the face of naked political calculations of power. Therefore, the international law review of the Greenland case must be carried out within the macro framework of maintaining a rules-based international system, and its conclusions are related to the survival of fundamental principles such as sovereign equality, national self-determination and treaty observance, which have an impact far beyond the Arctic.

The United States’ claims and actions against Greenland first constitute a fundamental impact on the principles of national sovereignty, equality and territorial integrity. The principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity and the non-use of force or threat against the political independence and territorial integrity of any country, as established in Article II of the Charter of the United Nations, are the constitutional cornerstone of modern international relations and the core of the collective security pact concluded by the international community after the painful lessons of the two world wars. [All of which have been broken by the Outlaw US Empire since 1945.]

During the Trump administration, the public discussion of “buying” Greenland and treating the sovereign territory of Denmark, a founding member of the United Nations, and its people as valuable and tradable assets is itself a gross contempt and blatant challenge to the above principles. It revives the logic of colonialism and imperialism in the 19th century and even earlier in legal discourse, that is, territory and population can be transferred between sovereigns through trade, gift or coercion, which is contrary to the old norm of “territory can be transferred as an object of transfer” completely rejected by the post-World War II decolonization movement.

The complexity of Greenland’s legal status prevents it from being reduced to a “real estate transaction”. According to the 1933 ruling of the Permanent Court of Justice of the International Court of Justice and Denmark’s domestic constitutional arrangements, Denmark has sovereignty over Greenland recognized under international law. The Greenland Autonomy Act 2009 goes a step further by recognizing the Danish sovereignty framework while making it clear that the Greenlandic people are “a separate people with the right to self-determination under international law”.

This means that Greenland’s sovereignty structure has dual attributes and a dual consent mechanism: on the one hand, Denmark, as a sovereign holder under international law, enjoys ultimate legal authority. On the other hand, the will of the Greenlandic people, as the bearer of the right to self-determination, is the source of legitimacy for any eventual change of political status. Any act involving a fundamental change in sovereignty must be agreed upon by both the Danish state (usually subject to a strict parliamentary process) and the people of Greenland (through a free referendum in line with international standards).

The so-called “purchase” argument of the United States completely ignores this sophisticated two-tiered legal framework and attempts to use the single logic of commercial transactions to crudely deconstruct the complex reality of sovereignty and self-determination, which is not only a violation of Danish sovereignty, but also a complete denial of the status of the Greenlandic people as subjects of rights related to international law. Even if this discourse is not put into practice, the political signal it releases constitutes a symbolic erosion of the principle of sovereign equality, implying that the core principles of international law are compromiseable in the face of “strategic needs”, and the effect of norm loosening caused by this is far-reaching.

Second, the potential US operation on the Greenland issue, especially the possible “support independence to influence” path, involves serious distortion and instrumental exploitation of peoples’ right to self-determination. The right to self-determination is a fundamental right recognized by the Charter of the United Nations and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In the context of decolonization, this right aims to free the people from colonial rule or foreign occupation and establish an independent state. Within Greenland’s constitutional framework, the Greenlandic people exercised the right to self-determination, with reasonable options including maintaining existing associative relations with Denmark, deepening autonomy or moving towards full independence.

However, if an external power induces or forces Greenland to enter into a de facto protective relationship or exclusive alliance with it after independence in the name of supporting “independence”, it is a fundamental betrayal of the spirit of self-determination. This operation alienates the right to self-determination into a kind of “conditional self-determination”: the premise of independence is to invest in the strategic arms of a specific power in exchange for security guarantees and economic aid at the cost of ceding dominance of defense, diplomacy and even key economic resources.

The result is not true “independence”, but a deformed state of coexistence of formal legal independence and substantive high dependence, that is, a modern replica of the relationship between “protectorate” or “vassal state” in the history of international law. This not only deviates from the essential goal of the right to self-determination to pursue freedom from external control and achieve independent development, but also violates the spirit of relevant international instruments (such as the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples) that the exercise of the right to self-determination should safeguard national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

If the United States pursues this path, it will take advantage of the Greenlandic people’s legitimate desire for economic development and security to instrumentalize their desire for self-determination as a pawn to serve its own geostrategic interests, which constitutes a serious desecration of this basic human right and the moral values it carries.

Furthermore, the Greenland case once again confirms a key and unconfusing principled distinction in international law: “actual existence” or “de facto influence” is fundamentally different from “de jure sovereignty” on sovereignty issues.

Since World War II and the Cold War, especially through the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement and its successor arrangements, the United States has established a deep, durable and highly exclusive military and security presence in Greenland, exemplified by the Thule base. Although this “embedded presence” is a powerful “de facto situation” that cannot be ignored and forms deep control in specific fields (such as defense and security), international law theory and practice strictly distinguish between such “functional control” based on the authorization of specific treaties and “effectivités” as a component of sovereignty.

In the case law of the International Court of Justice and related doctrines, “effective control”, which forms the basis of territorial sovereignty claims, usually refers to the full, peaceful and continuous exercise of state functions, including legislative, judicial, administrative and other sovereign powers, and the ability to show intention to act as a “sovereign”.

In contrast, the legal nature of the U.S. presence in Greenland is clearly defined from the beginning: it stems from the specific authorization of Denmark as a sovereign country through bilateral defense treaties, and its rights and activities are strictly bound by the purpose and terms of the treaty. This deep participation in a limited area, based on the consent of other countries, no matter how significant its physical existence, does not constitute “effective control” that can challenge or replace the original sovereignty. It is more of a powerful “right of use” or “management” that is licensed within a sovereign structure rather than “ownership”.

Therefore, the core of the modern international territorial law order is that the transfer or creation of sovereignty must be based on the explicit, voluntary and international law consent of the original sovereign (usually embodied in territorial treaties) or through the practice of national self-determination in accordance with international law standards. The legitimacy of all U.S. rights and activities in Greenland is based entirely on Denmark’s sovereign will and its continued consent.

Any attempt to unilaterally change the legal status of Greenland without the common, free, and express consent of Denmark (as a sovereign state over Greenland under international law) and the people of Greenland (as a people with the right to self-determination)—whether it is the so-called commercial “purchase”, the “independence” that lacks true autonomy through the exertion of asymmetric influence, or the distorted use of existing defense agreements beyond their original purpose and reasonable interpretation in order to gradually erode sovereign rights—they will be recognized as illegal and invalid under international law due to the lack of a valid title.

In the final analysis, the Greenland case clearly shows that in an international system composed of sovereign states, power projection and factual influence can shape political reality and negotiation situation, but the ultimate ownership of legal sovereignty is still determined by a relatively independent set of normative procedures. This procedure is based on the consent of the State and the self-determination of the people, and aims to set legal boundaries that cannot be arbitrarily crossed for the de facto exercise of power.

This paradox highlights the fundamental binding force of international law in limiting the behavior of superpowers: even with extreme disparities in power, the formal and procedural requirements of legal sovereignty still pose a normative barrier that is difficult to completely bypass. It suggests that power can create and maintain “facts”, but such “facts” cannot automatically generate new “legal rights” unless established legal procedures are followed and legally authorized.

No matter how extensive the U.S. “right to use” in Greenland is, as long as there is no voluntary transfer of sovereign rights, it can never be qualitatively transformed into “ownership”. The existence of this legal boundary is the last legal shield for weak countries and their peoples to defend their rights in the international system.

Fourth, if the U.S. continues to move, it will seriously erode the fundamental principle of international law of “Pacta Sunt Servanda” and trigger a far-reaching crisis of trust in the alliance. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement is a bilateral treaty concluded between the United States and Denmark under the framework of NATO’s collective defense, the fundamental purpose of which is to jointly respond to security threats, and its implicit premise and basis is mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The agreement gives the United States broad rights in specific defense areas and is an act authorized by Denmark based on sovereign freedom. If the United States uses this agreement as a springboard to go beyond pure defense cooperation and seeks to undermine or even eventually replace Denmark’s strategic objectives of sovereignty in Greenland, it is clearly contrary to the object, purpose and principle of good faith performance of the treaty. For example, unilaterally expanding the scope and nature of military activities, or using security dependencies as a lever of political pressure to force Denmark to make concessions on sovereignty issues, alienate alliance treaties as tools for strategic expansion.

Such behavior, if it occurs or is perceived as a real threat, will destroy the legal and political mutual trust on which NATO and the entire Western alliance system depend. The vitality of the alliance lies not only in the perception of common threats, but also in the assurance that member states will abide by the rules jointly formulated and respect their core sovereign interests.

If the most powerful allies can use the defense cooperation framework to erode or even covet their territories for their own strategic interests, then the alliance’s contractual foundation will collapse completely. Other small and medium-sized member states will fall into general insecurity and fear that they may become the next target, forcing the alliance to degenerate from a community with a shared future based on laws and rules to a loose collective that relies purely on force deterrence and exchange of interests, and its cohesion and operational effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

Finally, and most seriously, if the United States succeeds in changing Greenland’s legal status through any coercion, inducement, or legal brinkmanship tactics, it will set an extremely dangerous precedent in international law and have a global and systemic impact on the rules-based international order.

The central implication of this precedent is that as long as the force is strong enough and the strategic needs are urgent enough, the core peremptory norms of international law such as sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non-interference in internal affairs, and the prohibition of the use of force can be circumvented, overridden, or even blatantly violated: “Strategic necessity” or “national security” can be a “justification” for unilaterally changing the ownership of another country’s territorial sovereignty. This will fundamentally subvert the basic order established since World War II to curb territorial expansion ambitions and guarantee the political independence of all countries.

The ripple effects it triggers will be catastrophic:

First, it will encourage other countries with territorial claims or expansionist tendencies to invoke the “Greenland model” to find a cloak of so-called “legitimacy” for their actions in the surrounding area, exacerbating regional tensions and conflicts.

Second, it will greatly stimulate separatist movements on a global scale, making them more inclined to seek alliances with external powers, fantasizing about changing the internal balance of power by introducing external power intervention, exposing the territorial integrity of many countries to more complex and international challenges.

Third, it will plunge all small and medium-sized countries, especially those with strategic locations or abundant resources but weak national strength, into deep security anxiety, realizing that their survival is no longer guaranteed by universal rules of international law, but depends on whether they are regarded as pawns in the game by major powers and the strength of their ability to maneuver.

Fourth, it will seriously damage the mechanism and belief in the peaceful settlement of international disputes, send a red flag that “strength and fait accompli” are superior to “law and negotiation”, and lead to further marginalization of international law and its judicial and arbitration mechanisms.

To sum up, the Greenland issue is by no means an isolated geopolitical event, but a severe stress test for the international legal order. The relevant propositions and potential paths of the United States impact the basic principles of modern international law at many levels. The international community remains vigilant and stands firm not only in the legitimate rights of the people of Denmark and Greenland, but also in defending the foundations of an international system that is safer, predictable and fairer for all countries, large and small.

Against the backdrop of the political clamor of power, the principles of international law sometimes appear fragile, but they constitute the last line of defense against the willfulness of powers and the preservation of fundamental justice. The final outcome of Greenland will largely indicate whether our era has chosen to continue on the track of the rule of law or acquiesce to the dangers of regression to the “law of the jungle”. Upholding the legitimacy of international law in this case is therefore of universal significance beyond individual cases.

Epilogue

The complexity of the Greenland issue is far from being covered by a single legal interpretation or moral judgment. It is like a prism, reflecting the profound structural contradictions in international politics in the 21st century: the traditional principle of sovereignty rooted in the Westphalian system is encountering a new hegemonic practice characterized by strategic competition and influence projection. The theoretically lofty right of national self-determination is often closely entangled with the geopolitical intervention and economic temptations of major powers in practice. The competition for Arctic resources is superimposed on the existential challenge of global climate change, making any decision a difficult trade-off between short-term interests and long-term survival.

In this context, legal norms and power politics are not always binary opposites but often present a complex symbiotic relationship that shapes each other, uses each other, and restricts each other. The Trump-era “island purchase” rhetoric is an abrupt footnote to this complexity, which not only exposes the strategic anxiety of the United States in the face of the evolution of the global power pattern, but also reveals in an almost naked way the real fragility of the international legal order in the face of the unilateral will of a powerful country.

It must be recognized that the authority of international law, as a normative framework for exchanges between states, not only comes from the rationality and justice of the text but also depends on the continuous recognition and compliance of major actors, especially major powers. History has repeatedly shown that although hard power cannot automatically generate legitimate territorial sovereignty, it is enough to shape the political conditions and negotiation environment for realizing or changing sovereignty claims.

The future of Greenland should undoubtedly be legally guided by the principles of international law with the Charter of the United Nations at its core, and its ultimate status must respect the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination and be achieved through a constitutional consultation process with the Kingdom of Denmark. However, the purity of this legal process is inevitably affected by the external influence of the sharp increase in the geoeconomic value of the Arctic.

“Soft” intervention by major powers through investment, scientific and technological cooperation, political lobbying, etc., like direct military coercion, may substantially affect or even distort the process of forming the will of the local people. Therefore, to maintain the authenticity of the right to self-determination, it is necessary not only to resist blatant coercion, but also to be vigilant against asymmetric dependencies under the appearance of interdependence.

For latecomer Arctic stakeholders such as China, the Greenland issue poses a very representative complex challenge. It requires participants to demonstrate superb strategic prudence and rule control ability while pursuing legitimate economic interests and scientific research rights. Adhering to the legality of actions, the transparency of the process and the sustainability of development are the cornerstones of obtaining long-term participation qualifications and accumulating international credibility.

This means that China’s Arctic policy should not only aim at short-term resource acquisition or strategic presence, but should aim to become a responsible incremental factor in the Arctic governance system, and actively maintain a network of regional rules based on international law such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. At the same time, it is important to be soberly aware that the Arctic has become a new frontier in the strategic competition of great powers, and a purely idealistic “rules first” view may not be able to cope with the complex game reality.

Therefore, China needs to develop a more resilient and pragmatic diplomacy under the premise of abiding by the basic framework of international law, not only to avoid actively falling into the trap of confrontation, but also to have sufficient countermeasures to protect its legitimate rights and interests from erosion. This requires a fine balance: firmly uphold the rules-based international order in discourse and practice, while maintaining a clear understanding of the risk of the order being eroded or even instrumentalized by power politics in practice, and making corresponding policy reserves for this purpose.

The final enlightenment of the Greenland case to the international community may be to re-examine the real role and effectiveness boundaries of international law in the contemporary world. Although international law is an important tool and moral resource for small and medium-sized countries to regulate the behavior of powerful countries and protect their own rights and interests, its effectiveness is not automatically realized or absolutely reliable.

Its vitality depends on the self-restraint of the great powers in most cases for long-term interests and reputational considerations, and on the collective political will of the members of the international community to defend common rules. When major powers choose to prioritize short-term strategic gains over maintenance system legitimacy, international law norms are in danger of being overridden or selectively applied.

For the United States, if its Arctic policy or broader foreign behavior continues to demonstrate unilateralist departures from the rules it advocates, the cost will be far more than tension with specific allies. The deeper crisis is that this will accelerate the erosion of the credibility and cohesion of the liberal international order itself, led by the United States since World War II, and may eventually lead to a more fragmented global environment that relies more on pure power competition. The degradation of this system means higher transaction costs and unpredictable strategic risks for all countries, including the major powers themselves trying to reshape the rules.

Therefore, in order to deal with the governance problems of Greenland and similar global commons, a kind of normativism based on realism, or in other words, prudence and pragmatism with a sense of rules, must be adopted. It requires all countries, especially major powers, to pursue their own interests, at least as a serious “binding condition” and “language of dialogue”, rather than an obstacle that can be completely ignored.

The path to solving the problem ultimately returns to the complex process of dialogue, negotiation and exchange of interests, in which legal principles provide the basic framework and yardstick of legitimacy, and political wisdom is responsible for finding a feasible balance under the constraints of reality.

Therefore, Greenland’s future is not only a legal question of sovereignty and self-determination, but also a political litmus test to test whether the international community can manage great power competition, coordinate global interests, and respond to common challenges in a relatively orderly and controlled manner in the 21st century. Its final answer will profoundly affect the stability and direction of the Arctic and even the entire international system. [My Emphasis]

The author illustrates very well the importance of international law and why the Outlaw US Empire has sought to avoid the system it helped to establish—it has always operated unilaterally ignoring anything that gets in the way of its goals. Trump recently declared he’s unconstrained by any law—domestic or international—making his oath of office a profound BigLie. I know many readers are inimical to the UN and its Charter because there’s no way to police powers that break international law. However, I hope that after reading this they’ll appreciate just how valuable international law is for all nations big and small, and that the fault lies with the barbaric behavior of only a few nations. If their behaviors or nations didn’t exist, then the UN Charter and system would work well.

Below is a topographic map of Greenland’s bedrock as revealed by ground penetrating radar. This link is to a video about Greenland that shows and discusses what’s under the ice from the 11:30 mark to the 13:30 mark, although much more about Greenland is discussed. Far more extensive work on Greenland’s under ice construction exists online but the search for it isn’t as easy as it was when Nevin’s Arctic blog was active.

I once followed changes in the Arctic and Greenland very closely but ceased about the advent of Covid. My previous laptop has many links to still active Arctic sites. Jim Hunt’s blog, The Great White Con, is still operating. And here’s a site Trump can’t close, National Snow & Ice Data Center. Both concentrate on science not politics.

Of course, developing Greenland for anything beyond fishing will require massive amounts of investment and Greenlanders claim they don’t want all that crap. I’m sure they’re also aware of the great disparity in welfare support systems between Denmark and the Outlaw US Empire, with the former being humane while the latter is inhumane. The thickness of Greenland’s ice cap is about 3 Km at its maximum but only about 1.7 Km average. There’s very little soil for cultivation, pasturage growth or foliage. Type Nuuk into your search engine and select images to see what it’s like around Greenland’s capital. Here’s what’s seen during the summer on the ice cap:

Meltwater rivers that often flow into chasms that descend to the bedrock far below.

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