How China conquers the world one island at a time in the South China Sea/Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean.
The island of Iceland (a NATO founding member) is strategically located like Guam!
Very clever! Like taken out of the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
"... Whereas Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama saw China as a partner, even if also a “near peer” competitor, Trump recognized China as an enemy and existential threat to the United States. ..."
While Bjarni Benediktsson, a conservative, led Iceland for ten months in 2017 and since April 2024, Iceland’s other prime ministers since 2009 have all hailed from left-of-center parties: Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of government, arose from the Social Democratic Alliance. The next two prime ministers, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, were progressives. Katrín Jakobsdóttir, prime minister between 2017 and 2024, was chair of the Left-Green Alliance.
Iceland’s China problem began with the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis when the country’s three largest private banks all defaulted sparking what, proportional to Iceland’s size, was the world’s largest banking collapse. A joke at the time asked, “What’s the capital of Iceland?” The answer was not Reykjavik, but rather “25 cents.” ... Sigurðardóttir also sought Chinese assistance after Western countries objected to Russia helping to bailout one of NATO’s founding members. In June 2010, Beijing and Reykjavik agreed to a three-year $500 million currency swap deal to enable Iceland to pay for Chinese imports in the kronur, Iceland’s currency. The two countries subsequently renewed the swap. While Icelandic negotiators said China’s interest and investment in Iceland was to tap Icelandic expertise in geothermal and hydroelectric generation, China’s record in the Atlantic and Arctic suggests Beijing had ulterior motives. ...
While the crisis passed, the Iceland-China relationship continued to solidify with successive Icelandic leaders looking at China as a cash cow. On April 15, 2013, Iceland and China signed a Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement between China and a European country. The agreement affirmed the rights of Iceland and China to invest directly in the other. For Iceland, this was theoretical; its major exports to China are frozen fish, tin foil, and processed crabmeat. Icelanders pin their hopes on geothermal cooperation, a market they say could translate into more than $11 billion. In 2006, Sinopec, China’s leading energy firm, and an Icelandic company Enex-China partnered to produce geothermal energy for Xianyang, a city of around five million people in central China. The results were mixed ...
China’s expansion into Iceland was multifaceted. The Confucius Institutes are a major pillar of Chinese soft power. The Institutes say they provide language lessons and sponsor cultural events, but they promote an exclusively pro-Chinese Communist Party line and often serve as bases to both spy on Chinese abroad and to disrupt events that counter Chinese positions on Tibet, Taiwan, or Tiananmen. As China began to see Iceland as its de facto base in the North Atlantic, it opened the Northern Light Confucius Institute at the University of Iceland. ...
China proceeded to open a number of supposedly scientific institutions that, much as in Svalbard, enable Chinese intelligence and security deployment to the island under the guise of scientific research. In October 2018, for example, the Polar Research Institute of China and the Icelandic Center for Research opened a joint China Iceland Arctic Research Observatory in Karholl, a small town in northern Iceland. ..."
China likely sought the ability to build factories in Iceland and both monitor NATO movements and access the Arctic’s strategic minerals represents a major strategic gain. Between 2012 and 2017, Chinese investment in Iceland amounted to almost six percent of Iceland’s gross domestic product, though that percentage fell because of both the COVID pandemic and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)’s decision to cease exploration off Iceland’s coast.
China has sought to establish a strategic position in Iceland in other ways. In 2011, Huang Nubo, a Chinese businessman, sought to buy 100 square miles of land in Iceland in a deal backed by the China Development Bank. While Huang talked up a golf course as the project’s focal point, his plans also included a private airfield.
No comments:
Post a Comment