China’s mysterious space station in Argentina

Shrouded in secrecy, the Chinese-built and operated compound in  Argentina has been stirring unease among local residents, fuelled conspiracy theories and sparked concerns in the Trump administration about its true purpose. 

Background 

China is a single-party socialist republic in Asia, with over 1.4 billion people and the world’s second-largest economy terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Argentina is a country in South America which has a population of 43 million people, it is a Federal Presidential constitutional Republic and one of the largest, high-income economies in Latin America.

China’s interest in Latin America can be traced to a unique policy paper published in 2008. The paper argues China and Latin America were “at a similar stage of development”, therefore both stand to gain from future partnerships. The new installation will be used to monitor the post-launch operations of China’s Chang’e Lunar Landing program, the next launch of which is due to take off in 2019.

In late 2018, China completed the construction of the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General tracking hub in Neuquén Province, Argentina. The stated purpose of the tracking centre was “peaceful purposes” but the lack of transparency has raised suspicions over the true nature of the centre. 

Analysis 

When China built a military-run space station in Argentina's Patagonian region, it promised to include a visitors' centre to explain the purpose of its powerful 16-storey antenna. The centre is now built behind the eight-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire space station compound. Visits are by appointment only.

The station's stated aim is peaceful space observation and exploration and, according to Chinese media, it played a key role in China's landing of a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon in January. However, the remote 200ha compound operates with little oversight by the Argentine authorities, according to hundreds of pages of Argentine government documents obtained by Reuters and reviewed by international law experts.

President Mauricio Macri's former foreign minister, Ms. Susana Malcorra, said in an interview that Argentina has no physical oversight of the station's operations. In 2016, she revised the China space station deal to include a stipulation it be for civilian use only. The agreement obliges China to inform Argentina of its activities at the station but provides no enforcement mechanism for authorities to ensure it is not being used for military purposes, say international law experts.

"It really doesn't matter what it says in the contract or in the agreement," said Mr. Juan Uriburu, an Argentine lawyer who worked on two major Argentina-China joint ventures. "How do you make sure they play by the rules?".

China's space programme is run by its military, the People's Liberation Army. The Patagonian station is managed by the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General (CLTC), which reports to the PLA's Strategic Support Force.

Beijing insists its space programme is for peaceful purposes and its Foreign Ministry in a statement stressed the Argentine station is for civilian use only. It said the station was open to the public and media. "The suspicions of some individuals have ulterior motives," the ministry said. Asked how it ensures the station is not used for military purposes, Argentina's space agency CONAE said the agreement between the two countries stated their commitment to "peaceful use" of the project.

It said radio emissions from the station were also monitored, but radio astronomy experts said the Chinese could easily hide illicit data in these transmissions or add encrypted channels to the frequencies agreed upon with Argentina. CONAE also said it had no staff permanently based at the station, but they made "periodic" trips there.            

The United States has long been worried about what it sees as China's strategy to "militarise" space, according to one US official, who added there was reason to be sceptical of Beijing's insistence that the Argentine base was strictly for exploration.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that despite the initial agreement to use the new base for civilian purposes, China has evidently not adhered to its own commitment. We believe that there may be a possibility that the new satellite tracking centre could be used to eavesdrop on western satellites.