Iceland’s president welcomes Chinese as a sign blossoming ties with the rising Asian power, while alleging that Europe and the US abandoned their north Atlantic neighbour in the wake of its devastating financial crisis three years ago. Iceland’s president welcomes Chinese interest By Andrew Ward in Reykjavik and Leslie Hook in Beijing
Iceland’s president welcomes Chinese interest
Iceland’s president has hailed a controversial Chinese investment as a sign of the country’s blossoming ties with the rising Asian power, while alleging that Europe and the US abandoned their north Atlantic neighbour in the wake of its devastating financial crisis three years ago.
“China and India lent Iceland a helping hand in many constructive ways whereas Europe was hostile and the US was absent,” Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson told the Financial Times, as he responded to a controversy over the proposed sale of a large tract of Iceland to a Chinese tycoon for an eco-tourism resort.
Some Icelandic politicians and business leaders are concerned the project could be a cover for China’s strategic interest in the country as global warming opens up the nearby Arctic to oil exploration and shipping.
But Mr Grímsson said that, while the sale required scrutiny, he saw no reason to fear Chinese investment and praised the interest shown by China and India in Iceland at a time when relations with its traditional Nato allies have grown tense.
While Iceland received a European-led bail-out from the International Monetary Fund and talks are under way for the country to join the European Union, Mr Grímsson accused the EU of “turning their guns” on Iceland during the dispute over money lost by UK and Dutch depositors in the failed Icesave bank . He added that the US had shown “zero interest” in the country since closing its air base near Reykjavik five years ago.
Mr Grímsson, in office for the past 15 years, is known as a maverick often at odds with the country’s centre-left government.
While his remarks reflect widespread public resentment over alleged bullying by Iceland’s western allies since the bank crash, not all Icelanders share his enthusiasm for Chinese investment. Some government ministers have expressed reservations over the plan by Huang Nubo, a real estate entrepreneur and former Communist party official, to buy 300 square kilometres of wilderness in the country’s north-east.
Mr Huang told the Financial Times on Friday it would send a negative signal to other Chinese investors in Iceland if the deal fell through. “It will be like killing the monkey to scare the chickens,” he said while stroking his pet cat, Little Sister Big Eyes.
A keen mountaineer and poet, the 55-year-old says he was drawn to Iceland by his love of nature and his friendship with an Icelandic room-mate during his college years.
Mr Grímsson has prioritised relations with China and India, while promoting Iceland as a potential Arctic logistics hub and touting its expertise in geothermal power. He has visited China five times in the past six years and claims to have received more Chinese delegations to Iceland during his presidency than “the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain combined”.
Mr Grímsson revealed that, in the weeks after the 2008 bank collapse, he wrote to China’s president, Hu Jintao, for assistance. That approach was the catalyst for last year’s $500m currency swap agreement between the two countries
India has also been supportive, opening an embassy in Reykjavik weeks after the crisis struck and inviting him on a state visit at the height of Iceland’s Icesave dispute with the UK. Indian investors are planning to build a five-star hotel near Thingvellir, a Unesco world heritage site as home to Iceland’s ancient Viking parliament and the place where the continental plates of Europe and North America meet.
Mr Grímsson said Iceland stood to benefit from the growth of foreign travel by Chinese and Indian tourists: “In big Asian cities, many people have never experienced solitude or wilderness. In Iceland, we have always take this for granted but now we see it could be as valuable a resource for us as fish stocks and geothermal power.” |
