美国购买格林兰岛的历史缘由和合法性

粉红五毛不要看 帝国主义伤人心

In 1946, the United States made a formal offer to purchase Greenland from Denmark for $100 million in gold. This proposal emerged after World War II when the U.S. had taken responsibility for Greenland's defense during the war, establishing military bases on the island.

U.S. officials viewed Greenland as vital for national security, especially with the onset of the Cold War. They believed controlling Greenland would provide significant military advantages.

In 2019, Denmark, which holds sovereignty over Greenland, deemed the president’s idea ridiculous. In the U.S., critics lambasted his project as megalomaniacal or un-American.

But the idea isn’t outlandish or unique to President Trump. Politicians from all parties have negotiated such deals throughout U.S. history. Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase and then flirted with buying Cuba. As secretary of state, John Quincy Adams arranged debt relief for Spain in exchange for Florida. Secretary of State William Seward acquired Alaska. What Mr. Trump proposes is consistent with this American tradition—and with our current borders. Sovereignty purchases are responsible for more than 40% of U.S. land.

Further, this practice has had international approval. When Spain, France, Mexico and Russia sold to America the lands that now make up a large portion of our country, they recognized the legitimacy of such transactions.

Purchasing sovereignty has been an accepted custom of international law for centuries. The unification of Germany in the 19th century involved real-estate transactions in which states mixed sovereignty, property and money. In 1898, Imperial Germany leased sovereignty over Qingdao, a settlement on China’s Shandong Peninsula. Later that year, the U.K. leased from China sovereignty over a piece of land further south, in Kowloon. That land became a crucial part of a now-familiar trade hub: Hong Kong.

Though Danish leaders today imply that the idea of selling sovereignty is out of touch with their national values, the country has a long history of doing just that. In 1845, the king of Denmark accepted millions of rupees from the East India Co. to transfer control over multiple Danish hubs in India. In the early 1900s, Denmark’s leadership, despairing over the loss of Schleswig-Holstein to Bismarck’s Prussia, floated a possible sale of Greenland to the U.S. The U.S. didn’t agree but in January 1917 paid $25 million to Denmark for another remote Danish possession of strategic importance—now the U.S. Virgin Islands.