ABSTRACT
This chapter examines China’s failed attempts to invest in seaports in the Arctic and Scandinavia and compares these with successful Chinese investments in a Dutch seaport. Regarding the former, it examines the Chinese offer in 2016 to buy a disused naval seaport, Groennedal, in Greenland and a more recent endeavor to build a new, Chinese-financed commercial seaport in Kirkenes in northernmost Norway. As for the latter, it probes China’s presence in Europe’s largest container port, the Port of Rotterdam, where Chinese companies own or have stakes in several deep-sea container terminals and control the port’s largest terminal operator. Finally, the chapter contemplates possible reasons why China has not been successful in investing in Scandinavia and the Arctic but has been successful in investing in seaports in Northwestern Europe. In Scandinavia and the Arctic, particular national and regional conditions make investments difficult and less attractive. Recent geopolitical and geostrategic developments, which might also affect future Chinese investments in Europe, have the most to do, though, with the failures. Success in the Netherlands has to do with specific commercial and geographical factors as well as the timing and the government’s encouragement of Chinese investments.
