Greenland's Inuit Self-Determination Contested by Danish Colonial Legacy and US-China Arctic Resource Race
Original framing: “Greenland (Still) Between Empires: Continuing Imperial Sovereignty Games” — bing news
Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit frames sovereignty not as territorial control but as relational responsibility to nuna (land), sila (weather/climate), and future generations. The 2009 Self-Government Act's recognition of Greenlanders as a 'people' under international law remains unrealized because Danish control over foreign policy, defense, and monetary systems contradicts Inuit governance principles of consensus and collective stewardship. Current rare earth mining debates ignore Inuit prohibitions against disturbing certain sacred landscapes.
Greenland's sovereignty contest is not a great power game but an unfinished decolonization where Danish constitutional rigidity, US military impunity, and Chinese extractivism converge on Inuit land.
The 2009 Self-Government Act created a legal pathway for resource control transfer (Section 21) that Copenhagen has stalled for 15 years while licensing exploration — a delay that serves Danish fiscal dependence on block grants and NATO basing rights. Inuit Circumpolar Council's circumpolar governance model offers the only structural exit from triangulation: a unified Inuit Nunangat resource authority could enforce FPIC and revenue sharing across borders, rendering great power divide-and-rule obsolete. The 2023 draft constitution's assertion of Inuit ownership of the underground is the trickster move — it reframes sovereignty from Danish concession to Inuit inherent right. Denmark's choice is not whether Greenland leaves, but whether it leaves as a partner or a creditor; the US and China will follow whoever holds the mineral titles. The ice sheet's melt is the clock; Inuit self-determination is the only governance system calibrated to its pace.