China is unveiling a new Antarctic research station south of Australia that will be open year-round, according to Chinese state-owned media.
Qinling Station is ostensibly designed to study local ecology but could also be used to collect vast troves of signals intelligence from Australia and New Zealand, experts say.
“While essential for tracking and communicating with China’s growing array of scientific satellites, ground stations can support intelligence collection,” the report said.
“Importantly, the station’s position may enable it to collect signals intelligence from U.S.-allied Australia and New Zealand and could collect telemetry data on rockets launching from newly established space facilities in both countries.”
To that end, the report said the new facility was part of China’s “broader pursuit of global great power status.”
China Pushes ‘Military-Civilian Mixing’
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long sought to project power through the polar regions to gain control of rich natural resource stores and strategically important sites for monitoring and controlling emerging global shipping lanes.Qinling’s location also grants it proximity to the U.S.-led McMurdo Station, Antarctica’s largest permanently inhabited community, from which it could also collect intelligence.
Concern about the facility stems from the CCP’s pursuit of a national strategy that aims to militarize the nation’s scientific facilities and renders civilian research of secondary consequence to political gain.
To that end, the CSIS report notes that the most recent edition of an influential Chinese military textbook observes that “military-civilian mixing is the main way for great powers to achieve a polar military presence.”
The military textbook also says that the regime should “give full play to the role of military forces in supporting polar scientific research and other operations.”
