China and the USA are Fighting Over Greenland

[Music] whoever controls the oceans has the power and here in the high North a new ocean is being born [Music] I'm wandering through a graveyard of American military equipment on the largest island in the world [Music] like what I'm seeing here is just a bunch of American Military infrastructure that was set up during World War II used during the Cold War and now it's just abandoned like this massive dish that was a part of the Cold War defense in the Arctic that the U.S used creating a chain of

radar so that if the Soviets invaded from the Arctic they would be able to detect it and this giant dish is one of those radar boosters after the Cold War the U.S sold this town and all of its buildings back to the greenlandic government for one dollar they didn't need it anymore that's because the world was at peace everything was good and the Arctic you know was just a frozen place that now with the Soviet Union falling apart was not strategically that important but things are changing I want

to show you what this looks like what it actually looks like on the ground here in Greenland get you up to speed on everything you need to know to understand what is certainly going to be one of the most important geopolitical issues for years to come increasing tensions blooming war on the Arctic is a massive military buildup happens in the Arctic Circle could have far-reaching implications for us all I'm at an airport in rural Greenland it's like in this Fjord system near the village of umana

and I'm realizing that I need to let you in on something which is today's video is sponsored by storyblocks I've been using store blocks for a decade long before I was ever a YouTuber I was just a video maker and I was using storyblocks that used to be called the video blocks now they're called storyblocks so I'm I'm able to go out here into the field take all these beautiful shots right I'm taking all these amazing shots of Greenland most of the time I'm not able to do this this is an expensiv

e thing to come out here and get all these shots most of the time I'm in my office making videos about the world how do I do that story blocks storyblocks is a giant repository of visual assets footage templates sound effects that you can use to bring your story to life so for me mostly that's the footage I go on the storyblocks I type in what I need and I get loads of results and then the best part is I can download unlimited Clips like you pay one subscription and you can go buck wild and down

load as many Clips as you want this is a very good feeling for anyone who's had to pay to license footage per clip or per second storyblocks is just like you pay a subscription it's a very reliable no hidden fees reliable rate every month and you get as many Clips as you want this works for individual creators that are small big this works for big production companies like when I was working at production companies or different places I would use story blocks like it's for creators production co

mpanies of all sizes I use storyblocks all the time and I'm really glad that they have decided to sponsor one of my videos I've actually thought of it I was out here shooting and I was getting all this amazing Drone footage and I was like should get some of this up onto story blocks so right now I've actually uploaded a bunch of my own clips from this trip from Greenland to storyblocks these are gorgeous Clips I'm telling you I got some of the best footage of my life while I was here and a bunch

of that is up on storyblocks so oh and I didn't mention this but StoryBox also has After Effects templates like animation templates that you can use to start off your animations I know how to do animation I love animation but I secretly use templates all the time because they make life so much easier oh and they just put out this um plug-in right in Premiere and after effects where you can have like story blocks inside of the editor so you're not actually going to a website and downloading you'

re just browsing story blocks inside of the editor which is like like mind-blowing what is happening life is so much easier when you have unlimited access to clips and assets right inside of your editor so giant fan of storyblocks over here really grateful that they're supporting today's video there's a link in my description it is storyblocks.com Johnny Harris clicking that link helps support this channel not support surprisingly but it also shows you how you can get in on this you can go find

what the pricing looks like for you go get a bunch of my clips that I've uploaded to storyblocks here from Greenland and uh hopefully you'll be a better stronger more versatile Creator because of it let's get back to this story because there's a lot to cover I have been moving through Greenland exploring this massive Island mostly have been in the fjords in these rural communities hunting for seals and birds riding on dog sleds getting to know how ice Works ice is way more complicated than you c

an imagine and the people here know it very well and filling in my gap of knowledge it's a gap of knowledge that I think a lot of people have like a lot of people know Greenland for memes about how little is known about Greenland or maybe you know it as the island that is always exaggerated in its size by the Mercator map projection but maybe that's probably just map nerds who think of it that way but anyway the fact is this place is not very well known or understood but I'm telling you that is

about to change [Music] the top of our planet is a giant ocean for centuries Empires who control the oceans are the ones that had the power but not up here this ocean has always been frozen desolate and inaccessible to powerful navies in search of power and influence so the Arctic has remained a geopolitically quiet place this is one reason why Inuit Traditions have been able to stay alive here though that's a whole nuanced subject and I went on a deep dive in another video I made from Greenland

the fact is that things are changing a new man-made blanket of carbon is now in the air and it's been trapping more and more heat on our globe and warming it just a few degrees but somehow enough to change everything [Music] here's what the ice up here looked like at its lowest point in the 80s and here's what it looked like at its lowest point last year yeah and this new ocean in the high North is heating four times faster than the rest of the planet and where there are liquid oceans there wil

l be countries looking to control those oceans the new shipping routes the oil and gas the minerals and just generally the opportunity to control and influence a new place so you've got Canada who's laying claim to the Northwest Passage saying that this valuable new shipping route Cuts right through their territory and should be theirs you've got Russia with all these military bases dotting their Arctic Frontier they're also claiming all of this ocean all the way up to the North Pole they even p

ut a flag on the ocean floor a few years ago the U.S is spending over a billion dollars to buy and build Icebreaker ships to patrol the Arctic and even the rising super power China a non-arctic nation is trying to get in on the influence up here working with their Ally Russia to create an ice Silk Road investing 10 billion dollars in projects across the Nordic region so yeah lots of activity happening all over this region I've just scratched the surface on a few highlights here but the fact is t

he Arctic is getting a lot of attention and one major focus is here in Greenland a place that has been pretty ignored by great Powers until that is there's something they need or there's something to gain which is exactly what's becoming the case as the ice smelts and this new ocean appears are you a global superpower looking to project influence in the newly opening Arctic look no further than Greenland the gateway to the Arctic Ocean most of Greenland this massive Island is located convenientl

y within the Arctic Circle this is why it was the chosen jumping off point for Arctic explorers who were trying to be the first to reach the North Pole in the early 1900s in fact the U.S recognized that this massive Island was a smart geopolitical location a long time ago convincing Greenland's colonizers to help them evict an Inuit community so that they could put an air base up here the top of the world turned out to be a perfect location to Traverse their growing Empire and to spy on the Sovi

ets during the Cold War they even had nuclear weapons up here for a time and it wasn't just one base over the course of the 20th century the U.S set up a handful of military bases in Greenland they used this island to put up these massive radar systems which would serve as early warning in case a Soviet invasion came from the north and now it just looks like a full-blown prop from a Star Wars movie I mean look at these so Greenland's strategic potential was clear but once the Soviet threat went

away the U.S mostly abandoned its presence here though they still have that base way up North and they've turned it actually into the base of their space force but they eventually closed down their Embassy in the capital and Greenland went back to being nothing really useful to the great Powers just a frozen Island at the doorstep of a frozen ocean so Greenland this massive Arctic Island at the Gateway to the Arctic Ocean is now becoming much more important that's because this ocean that's alway

s been frozen is melting more and more every year opening it up to new trade routes to new resources to new versions of influence that can be exerted at the top of our planet and so great powers are once again paying attention to this place because great Powers no longer see a desolate Frozen Island they see opportunity they see an island perfectly located close to New entire seen shipping lanes they see an island with territorial Waters full of new resources whose territorial claims theoretical

ly extend all the way past the North Pole incidentally overlapping with Russia and Canada they see the potential of this place being a repository of rare Earth elements the stuff we need to build modern Electronics like cell phones computer hard drives and electric vehicles so suddenly this place is becoming a lot more valuable in the eyes of people who want Power a fact that was highlighted by a guy who spent his life sniffing out real estate deals on land that was about to become valuable Trum

p wants to buy Greenland it's a large real estate deal so the concept came up and I said certainly I'd be strategically it's interesting yeah that actually happened boy that was a crazy four years I'm glad it's over anyway the point is that Greenland is now getting loads of attention and becoming much more valuable which brings me here to perhaps the clearest symbol of this renewed interest in Greenland this is the US Consulate in Nuke after saying they planned to buy the country the Trump Admin

istration backed down after Denmark was like hell no get out of here and instead took a different approach they ramped up efforts to build relations between Greenland and the United States Building Mutual economic interests which resulted in the opening of this consulate just in 2020. the US now has a diplomatic presence a physical presence in Greenland this big frozen Island that no Global superpower really thought was that important until recently I'm pleased to announce we will reopen our Con

sulate in Nook Greenland this summer for the first time since 1953. so this actually reminds me of a story I did a while back when I was up in the Arctic for Vox borders and I was visiting a Russian consulate on this little island and it truly never ceases to surprise me that in an era of like sophisticated alliances and like International institutions and like sophisticated military Weaponry we still resort to just putting human bodies and buildings in places that we want to have influence in l

ike it's a board game some things will never change but as the U.S looks to deepen its ties with Greenland so is another Power another Global superpower one that incidentally is nowhere near the Arctic but who knows that if they want to be the Top Dog on the world stage they're gonna need a foothold in this new region a race for resources could lead to a boil over a lot of focus is placed on the Chinese they do control a significant amount of Supply we are so adamant that these areas of the worl

d that are the arteries of trade and shipping remain peaceful there is a worry of this Chinese possible infiltration in the country in 2017 Greenland wanted to build more airports like the one behind me that they're building here in Greenland they don't have a lot of infrastructure for big airplanes so you can't get like big commercial flights in and out of large amounts of the country you have to fly around in small planes and helicopters which is kind of cool if you're like going on an adventu

re but if you're trying to develop your country you need bigger airports the problem is building airports is expensive and no one wanted to fund this except for China the prime minister of Greenland went to Beijing their friend and said hey do you want to help us fund our new airports China was like yes we will give you a loan to fund the airports but it has to be a Chinese construction company that builds the airports and Greenland was like okay let's do it that sounds great and immediately ove

r in the United States alarm Bells start going off this is not good the context here is that China has a habit of giving loans to countries that they want to like have influence in like in the future they do this a lot in Africa like they give loans knowing that they now have leverage over all of these countries who now owe them money anyway so the United States sees this potential deal happening between Greenland and China and hates it Greenland this place that is so strategically located that

it's right next to the United States that is really a huge part of the future of global influence in the Arctic suddenly in debt to China No in fact the Pentagon freaked out and was like What if Greenland defaults on their payments to China and China seizes the airports and starts using it for their military a little bit of an alarmist like Doomsday scenario but it's true like when you owe someone money they have over you the US did not like this so the US goes to Denmark and tells them to kill

the deal Denmark does it they agree and suddenly Denmark is now funding two-thirds of these airport projects China got rejected on these airport deals thanks to U.S pressure but they didn't give up they started setting their sights on those Rare Earth minerals that we talked about earlier the vital ingredients for your phone your computer and your electric car China holds a near Monopoly on mining and processing these minerals so they see Greenland as an opportunity to continue that near Monopol

y but also an opportunity to access the Arctic another place where they can compete with Western interests it started when this Chinese Corporation made a deal to fund a zinc and Lead Mine in the far north of Greenland it was all going to plan until the Australian owners of this mine suddenly decided to end their deal oh and shortly thereafter they got a 650 million dollar check from the United States to fund the project once again the U.S blocked their rifle from getting a foothold in the Arcti

c another Chinese company has had their mining licenses revoked entirely by the government of Greenland so between this diplomatic pressure as well as some local anti-mining political sentiment China has been blocked time and time again from getting its foothold on this island China's words and actions raised doubts about its intentions Beijing claims to be a near-arctic state yet the shortest distance between China and the Arctic is 900 miles so yeah the USA has made its stance very clear that

they don't want China a non-arctic nation to be meddling in this region to be gaining a foothold in the gateway to the Arctic this region that is opening up that is becoming really important and in addition to blocking China's efforts the US has also stepped up their own efforts to get more U.S influence and presence in this place to prepare for the future of geopolitical conflict the U.S is doing Investments on its own investing billions of dollars in military infrastructure in this region incl

uding a four billion dollar upgrade of that air and space installation in the north they're also committing to military training exercise within the Arctic the US Army has been sending their soldiers to train in arctic-like conditions to mimic What conflict might look and feel like in the high North the US government is offering millions of dollars in Aid directly to Greenland to help them develop their Mining and tourism sectors so yeah once again we see the struggle for influence playing out b

etween great powers in all of these kind of hard to see battlefields loans infrastructure blocking trade deals diplomatic pressure military presence this is kind of the flavor of modern conflict I mean not the Russian flavor of modern conflict but like the great Powers conflict plays out in these other ways these hard to see ways these bureaucratic systematic ways but who cares about these big superpowers and what they want for Greenland I came to the Capitol nuke to talk to my friend kupanuk ab

out what greenlanders actually want after all this is their Island they should decide how it's used and by whom we are not just looking at the Western world through Denmark anymore but we'll see him more globally so we're starting to realize more and more how lucky we actually are that's super interesting it turns out that about half of greenlanders actually think it's a good thing that China is increasing in its power and influence around the globe but when you ask them specifically about China

Investing in Greenland they're more hesitant with nearly 70 percent saying that they oppose foreign investment from China but a country like Greenland which has such a fraught history with colonizers also has reservations about Western interests here too and a lot of interest is have been and are still being done in Colonial and decolonial Nations more and more things are just being shown now because people are more aware of their rights and more aware of the rights that are being violated so g

reen lenders are waking up to their power in this situation waking up to the leverage that they have in this new Global competition and while they might have their concerns about China and the West they're looking for the best deal for their country the first ones must be our closest friends and like-minded Nations and then if other countries want to invest in greenlands and in our way we are open for business so as we move into this new era of great power competition the map is changing in unex

pected ways add to that the warming globe that is creating a new ocean and suddenly this island so often forgotten by great Powers is now in a position of Leverage there are many greenlandic people who haven't realized how powerful we can be how march is like I don't know how small Denmark is without Greenland it's like she's a tiny tiny country if they didn't hurt us we should be more aware of it and be more proud of it and realize how powerful we can actually be in the future foreign [Music]