The risk of military use of the facility, fueled by confidentiality clauses, fuels discussion in Argentina and suspicion in Washington.
China's arrival on the far side of the Moon has highlighted Chinese space advances. For that new degree program, Beijing has a tracking and observation station in Patagonia, the first was from its own territory. In Argentina there has been an extensive discussion about possible unacknowledged purposes of those facilities and alleged secret clauses negotiated at the time by the Kirchner Administration. The government of Mauricio Macri guarantees the peaceful uses of the station, but the controversy has not ceased.
▲ Chinese space station in the Argentine province of Neuquén [Casa Rosada].
article / Naomi Moreno Cosgrove
After years of gradual economic penetration, which has led it to become the first commercial partner of several South American countries and an important lender and investor throughout the region, China's incursion into Latin America is no longer silent. The influence achieved in several nations - for example, it acquires almost 90% of the oil exported by Ecuador and its credits have been essential for the subsistence of Venezuela or certain Brazilian public companies - means that China's activities are attracting special attention and its expansion is becoming increasingly clear.
China's growing power in Latin America is especially noted by the United States, although its own neglect of the region, sometimes presented as a consequence of its shift towards Asia, has contributed to national governments trying to meet its needs by seeking other partners from reference letter.
Already suspicious of this growing Chinese presence in the American continent, any activity in strategic fields, such as security, arouses particular suspicion in Washington. This has also been the case with moves made by Moscow, such as the siting of a station for the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema or GLONASS) in Managua (Nicaragua). The secrecy surrounding the operation of the facilities has caused mistrust among the population itself, raising suspicions as to whether their use is really intended only to provide a higher quality of the Russian navigation system or whether there is the possibility of strategic exploitation by the Russian aerospace defense forces.
Negotiation
Suspicions about the so-called Far Space Station, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) station in Patagonia, in the province of Neuquén, stem from entrance from the fact that it was negotiated at a time of special disadvantage for Argentina, due to the financial weakness of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government and its need for urgent credits. When Argentina was out of the international credit markets for having defaulted on the payment of close to 100 billion dollars in bonds, the Asian country was a blessing for the then president.
In 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, China sent representatives to the Latin American country to discuss an issue that had little to do with currency fluctuations: Beijing's space interests. This was due to China's desire to have a center in the other hemisphere of the globe that could support its space activity, such as the expedition to the far side of the Moon.
After months of negotiation under great discretion, the Chinese government and the government of the province of Neuquén signed a agreement in November 2012, whereby China obtained the right to use the land - rent-free - for fifty years. The technical agreement was signed by the Chinese state-owned business Launching Security and Control Satellite (CLTC) and the Argentine National Commission of Space Activities (CONAE).
Enormous in size, the larger of the two circular antennas - it is twelve stories high, weighs 450 tons and has a large diameter - and visible from a great distance due to its location in the middle of a desert plain, the station soon became an ideal target for controversy and suspicion. The fear that, in addition to the declared civilian use, it might also have a military use and be used to gather information by intercepting communications in that part of South America, fueled the controversy.
After becoming Argentine president in 2015, Mauricio Macri entrusted then Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and the Argentine ambassador in Beijing, Diego Guelar, with the task of negotiating that the agreement be supplemented with the specification that the station would only be used for peaceful purposes, something the Chinese accepted.
In spite of everything, the discussion about the risks and benefits of the Chinese base is still alive in the Argentine public opinion. Politicians of the civil service examination in Neuquén consider that "it is shameful to renounce sovereignty in your own country", as Congresswoman Betty Kreitman said when provincial legislators learned about project.
Beyond Argentina's borders, White House officials have called project a "Trojan Horse," reflecting U.S. concern about the initiative, according to sources quoted by The New York Times. Even apart from any strategic dispute with the United States, some Latin American leaders have doubts and regrets about the ties established with China, as they are concerned that previous governments have subjected their countries to an excessive dependence on the Asian power.
Confidentiality
The main questioning of the Chinese base, then, has to do with its eventual military use and with the possible existence of secret clauses. The latter have been the main cause of international suspicion, since Macri himself came to validate the existence of these clauses, when they became a weapon against the Kirchner government, and promised to reveal them when he became president, something he has not done. However, the Argentine space authorities themselves deny any section secrecy.
Perhaps the misunderstanding can be found in the fact that the contract signed between the Chinese CLTC and the Argentine CONAE states that "both parties will maintain confidentiality regarding the technology, activities and monitoring, control and acquisition programs of data". Although confidentiality with respect to third parties in relation to technology is a common internship , in this case it contributes to public distrust.
Given that the CLTC depends on the Chinese People's Army, it is difficult to deny that the data it obtains will pass into the domain of the Defense hierarchy and that they will end up having a military use, although not necessarily ordered to a warlike action. Experts also say that antennas and other equipment used to back up space missions, similar to those the Chinese have in Patagonia, are likely to increase China's intelligence-gathering capabilities. "A giant antenna is like a huge vacuum cleaner. It sucks up signals, information, all subject of things," commented Dean Cheng, an expert on China's national security policy, in the quoted NYT report.
