China is making “significant progress” in building the country’s fifth research facility in Antarctica after a multi-year halt in construction, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The think tank claims, in a report released Tuesday, that new support facilities and groundwork for a larger structure appeared after several years of inactivity after construction began in 2018.
The findings were based on satellite images taken in recent months by Maxar.
Chinese researchers at the Taishan station, one of four Chinese-operated research stations in Antarctica, in 2018. Credit: Liu Shiping/Xinhua/Getty Images
The site, a research station that China describes as a means to expand its scientific research in Antarctica, could also be used to improve the country’s intelligence gathering, according to CSIS.
China is not alone in bolstering its presence and research activities on the frozen continent, where several countries, including the United States, Britain and South Korea, have research stations.
But attention has focused on the potential dual use of Chinese facilities amid growing power competition with the United States and Western concern over Beijing’s assertive foreign policy and surveillance capabilities.
According to the CSIS report, the position of the new station, on Inexpressible Island near the Ross Sea, is triangulated with other Chinese coast stations in Antarctica to “fill a major gap in Chinese coverage” of the mainland, and could serve as support for intelligence gathering given its inclusion of a satellite ground station.
The station’s position could allow China to “collect intelligence signals from US-allied Australia and New Zealand” and “collect telemetry data from rockets launched from newly established space facilities in both countries,” according to the report.
Upon completion, the 5,000-square-meter station is expected to include a scientific research and observation area, a power facility, a main building, a logistics facility and a pier for China’s Xuelong icebreakers, according to CSIS.
In February 2020, a team of US inspectors visited the station, where they were received by station chief Wang Zhechao of the China Polar Research Institute.
They found no military equipment or military support personnel at the site, according to an inspection report released by the US State Department.
Upon completion, scientific research at the station would focus on physical and biological oceanography, glaciology, marine ecology, zoology, atmospheric and space physics, and geology, the account said, citing a 2018 draft of the Environmental Assessment. Comprehensive on the project presented by China to a Consultative Meeting of the Antarctic Treaty.
China has established four scientific research bases in Antarctica since 1984, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
A 2022 Defense Department report on China’s military notes that “(China’s strategy) for Antarctica includes the use of dual-use technologies, facilities, and scientific research, which are likely intended, at least in part, to to improve the capabilities of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army)”.
However, China has insisted on the scientific nature of its ambitions in the region.
In a speech to researchers in the polar regions earlier this year, then Vice Premier Han Zheng praised the teams’ contribution to “the scientific understanding of mankind and the peaceful use of the polar and oceanic regions.” Han is now vice president of China.
Under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, to which China is a party, activities on the continent are restricted to “peaceful purposes.”
Military personnel are authorized to conduct scientific research, but may not establish bases, test weapons, or carry out maneuvers.
