Yesterday’s Chinese edition the Global Times (环球时报) carried an article signed by their special envoy to Greenland Liu Zhonghua 刘仲华 that included interviews with Aleqa Hammond and Sara Olsvig.
The piece, entitled “No market for ‘China threat theories’ in Greenland”, goes to considerable lengths to emphasise the island welcomes investment from everywhere, in particular from China, and that fears of China’s intentions come from outside, specifically from English-language media. Liu refers to exaggerated reports about possible future Chinese involvement in the Isua iron project, and quotes Ms Hammond’s description of the situation.
Remarkably enough, the article calls Ms Hammond Greenland’s ‘Prime Minister’ and totally ignores what’s been going on in Greenlandic politics in the last few weeks. There’s also nothing about the fact that London Mining’s Isua project faces a rather uncertain future after the company went into administration.
The Global Times‘ envoy dates his insights about Greenland to a “recent” visit to that island. He interviewed Aleqa as recently as June 20. Unless he’s been to Nuuk again since then, that means material from that interview has taken four months to surface (to be fair, some already appeared on the People’s Daily on October 10).
There’s also no mention of Chinese interest in Greenland mining, which includes Jiangxi Copper’s exploration activities and China Nonferrous’ interest in rare earth projects.
Opposition leader Sara Olsvig is quoted about the deep impression a 2012 trip to China, that included visits to Tibetan areas in Qinghai, left her. She also “learned a lot from China’s political development”. A more global assessment of Ms Olvig’s interest in Chinese issues might have benefited from a word or two about her 2011 meeting with the prime minister of Tibet‘s government in exile.
More on the Global Times‘ style, with links to discussion elsewhere, in my previous post on one of their articles.