Fourteen years ago, a Chinese icebreaker called the Snow Dragon made a long and surprising voyage.

Over three months in the summer, the scientific research vessel crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic, traversing nearly 5,400 nautical miles of the Arctic Ocean, a first for China. The crew discovered that melting ice meant the ship could travel through the remote region without great difficulty, the expedition leader told reporters after docking in Iceland. “To our astonishment,” said the leader, Huigen Yang, “most part of the Northern Sea Route is open”.

American and European officials took notice at the time and began keeping a close watch on China’s moves in the Arctic. But while China has talked about expanding trade and access to shipping lanes and natural resources in the Arctic, it has developed only a small footprint there over the years. And even as China
and Russia compete with
the US in many parts of the world, they do not present a threat to American interests in or near Greenland, say experts on those two superpowers and current and former US officials, including intelligence analysts.

Those findings contrast sharply with assertions by President Trump, who has repeatedly cited security as the reason he wants to acquire Greenland. In a speech on Wednesday at an annual forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said Greenland was an “enormous, unsecured island” that was a “core national security interest of the United States of America”.

“It’s been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere, and we’ve done it very successfully,” he added.

At a meeting on January 14 in Washington, Vice-President J.D. Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio asked the Danish foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, and the foreign minister of Greenland, Vivian Motzfeldt, whether Denmark had the resources to protect Greenland against any potential future threat from China, Rasmussen said in an interview. However, Trump and his aides have not presented any intelligence that points to Chinese threats to Greenland.

China has increased its collaboration with Russia on maritime patrols and long-range bomber patrols in the vast Arctic region, said Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the top Nato commander in Europe. But allied officials say there is no looming threat, and in any case Greenland falls under the Nato security umbrella.

If any problems were to emerge, the US could expand its military presence in Greenland under a 1951 US-Denmark pact. Denmark, which has sovereignty over the autonomous island, has said it would welcome more American troops. The US had about 10,000 troops in Greenland during the Cold War, 50 times more than the 200 there now.

Although China does have a long-term goal of projecting naval power globally, it is focused on building up its military for deployment mainly in the Asia-Pacific region, where it is vying with the US for dominance.

“Regarding China, there’s no military activity near Greenland,” said John Culver, a former intelligence analyst on China who briefed Trump in his first term. “If this administration had any intel about actual threats, it would be leaked.”

“I’ve never read anything that shows China has military designs on Greenland,”
he added.

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who receives regular briefings from US intelligence officials, expressed a similar view.

“Let me be clear: As vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I’m closely tracking the facts, and there is no current military threat from Russia or China to Greenland,” he said on Thursday in a statement to The New York Times. “The only immediate threat right now is from the United States, with talk of taking territory from one of our closest allies.”

“Denmark has been clear: If we want expanded military access or greater cooperation on critical minerals, they’re open to it, but it must be done in partnership, not through intimidation and saber rattling,” Warner added. “When we create chaos with our allies, we weaken America’s ability to meet real global threats and make ourselves less safe.”

In 2020, China’s first domestic-built icebreaker, the Snow Dragon Two, completed an Arctic expedition. (The original Snow Dragon was built in Ukraine during the Soviet era.) China now has a handful of icebreakers, but commercial Chinese vessels going through the region rely on Russian icebreakers and Russian outposts.

What China wants is to have certain rights in the Arctic, including ones related to navigation, natural resource extraction and environmental management, Culver said. Discussions about those issues often take place at meetings of the Arctic Council, a multilateral organisation established in 1996 whose eight full members include the US and Russia. China has observer status.

New York Times News Service