Alex Lo has been an SCMP columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China.
An unmistakable pattern has emerged in the US’ strategy to contain China. Washington has sought to deny China access to frontier technologies and key commodities, and to redirect related supply chains to revitalise American industries.
In this context, US President Donald Trump’s intense interest in America taking over Denmark’s Greenland becomes clear. Deny the Chinese their favourite seafood, which many can’t live without, and revive the US food industry.
You think I am pulling your leg. This is not a joke. Well, it kind of is a bad joke but not by me. Rather, it came from the Trump administration.
Specifically, Tom Dans, a Treasury official during Trump’s first term and now head of the US Arctic Research Commission, finally revealed why Greenland is so vital to America’s national security.
“My view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce, and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China – and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster,” he told Ben Taub, a staff writer for The New Yorker.
So there you have it – the new seafood doctrine in American foreign policy, specifically articulated to counter China’s unrivalled appetite for the world’s seafood.