Prime Minister Mark Carney said in Beijing on Jan. 16, 2026, that he found “much alignment” with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Greenland’s sovereignty, Denmark’s rights and Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, as U.S. President Donald Trump pressed his threats to take over Greenland. Carney said Greenland’s future is for Greenlanders and Denmark to decide.
A shared position, stated in Beijing
Carney made the remarks at a press conference in the Chinese capital near the end of a visit that produced a tariff deal on electric vehicles and agricultural products. Asked what Canada was doing to protect Greenland’s integrity, he said the subject had come up directly in his talks with Xi.
“I had discussions with President Xi about the situation in Greenland, about our sovereignty in the Arctic, about the sovereignty of the people of Greenland and people of Denmark, and I found much alignment of views in that regard,” Carney said.
Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Carney repeated Canada’s position that its future is a decision for Greenland and Denmark alone, and he stressed that Denmark is a NATO ally whose security Canada is bound to defend.
“Our full partnership stands, our obligations under Article 5, Article 2 of NATO stand and we stand full square behind those,” he said. Article 5 is the alliance’s collective defence clause, invoked only once in NATO’s history — by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Trump’s threats form the backdrop
Trump has insisted the United States needs control of Greenland for national security reasons and has said he would take it “whether they like it or not.” On Friday he told reporters he was considering tariffs on countries that oppose his plans. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington would prefer to buy the island, an idea officials in both Greenland and Denmark have rejected outright.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO. Trump has also claimed that Russia or China would seize Greenland if the U.S. did not — a claim Arctic experts say is false.
Several European countries sent troops to Greenland in recent days, in co-ordination with Denmark, as a show of allied resolve.
Canada’s Arctic posture
Carney said his government has increased Canada’s military presence in the Arctic to 365 days a year on land, at sea and in the air, up from a four-month annual presence. The office of Defence Minister David McGuinty did not say whether Canadian personnel are currently in Greenland. “While the Canadian Armed Forces are not initiating any new operations at this time, we have several joint operations with European allies, including in Greenland,” spokesperson Maya Ouferhat said in an emailed statement.
Carney said Canada and Denmark are working together through NATO and the Nordic-Baltic Eight group of countries. Ottawa also plans to formally open a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, next month, and the Governor General is to visit with the foreign affairs minister in the first week of February.
Why the alignment is notable
The sovereignty alignment is striking because of who Canada was agreeing with. China describes itself as a “near-Arctic state” and has taken an increasingly active posture in the region, including joint military exercises with Russia near Canadian territory and around Alaska. Canada’s most recent defence policy, released in May 2024 under the previous government, warns of Chinese and Russian ambitions in the Arctic and says China’s interests “increasingly diverge from our own on matters of defence and security.”
Carney’s Beijing trip — following his first meeting with Xi in South Korea in October, the first leader-level contact since 2017 — is part of a deliberate reset of relations with China. The alignment on Greenland costs Beijing nothing and lands at a moment when Trump’s threats have pushed Canada and its European allies closer together. For Ottawa, the message was aimed as much at Washington as at anyone: on Arctic sovereignty, Canada says it will stand with Denmark — and it is noting every capital that says the same.
