Oer the past decade, relations between Denmark and China have become markedly closer and more diversified, as envisioned in their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement from 2008. Meanwhile, however, bilateral relations have become increasingly depoliticized, concentrating instead on countless Memorandums of Understanding on technical standards for trade-related exchanges. Left behind is Denmark’s so-called critical dialogue with China on human rights and other sensitive political issues despite the “illiberal turn” under Xi Jinping. Furthermore, with a US-China great power rivalry on the horizon, Denmark may soon be facing delicate strategic dilemmas on Greenland and elsewhere.
Andreas Bøje Forsby is an affiliated researcher, PhD, at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and an external lecturer in IR at Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. He has written his PhD on China’s self-understanding as a rising power and its grand strategy in the 21st century, but his main fields of expertise covers Asian security more broadly, including US foreign policy in Asia and security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula and in the South China Sea. Email: abf@nias.ku.dk, Web: http://nias.ku.dk/staff/andreas-b%C3%B8je-forsby
