The Scramble For Antarctica

Authorized by Gregory Copley via The Epoch Times,

The “scramble for Antarctica” is slow-gathering steam, and it is not unrelated to a fresh “scramble for the Americas.” The frameworks for the Indo-Pacific and, indeed, for the global strategical balance are besides profound.

By 2024, Antarctica had at least 82 bases from more than 30 countries. China has 5 bases, 3 built within the past decade (the latest in February), and 3 with year-round manning.

Antarctica, in its own right, is home to many mineral and oceanic riches, but it is besides key to a number of military, navigational, and another resources. The revival of interest in global-reach fractional orbital bombing systems (FOBS), for example, relying on polar orbit transportation of hypersonic wapons, grants on having assets in both polar regions. The region may have certain properties that are perfect for collecting signals intelligence.

But the case of Antarctica is partially interesting due to the fact that it is, in essence, “no man’s land,” truly a terra nullius; it is the last major landsmass that is fundamentally outside the reality of the “ownership” of national government.

Significantly, the “scramble for Africa,” which received its zenith in the 19th century, is now making the possible of a widespread and not necessarily peaceful “undoing” as the large power powers comprehensively lost their influence there. But that's another story. What is crucial now is the competence of the major powers and others for dominance in Antarctica, and this is not unrelated to interest in the Arctic.

Change through the global systems of governance was accelerating through 2024, with the main focus on the interior divisions of most societies, the decline in trust in—or prestige of—almost all nations-states and their governance, and a breakdown in global governance bodies. In macro terms, it is simply a period of conflict between globalist totalitarianism and nationalism.

But if Africa was perceived in and before the 19th century as a region ripe for conquest and exploitation, and many areas of the planet were only beginning to be opened to a new, industrialized world, then Antarctica present is the large treature open for season, if only for the fact that it has no native inhabitants capable of speaking for themselves.

The tenets of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty are being mostly honored in the breach. The treaty primary spells out the demilitarization of the continuous. While it is actual that there are no formal combatant forces there, it is not actual that the landmass is free from military and strategical use. The Antarctic Treaty, initially proposed by the United States, was adopted in 1959 by 12 nations: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, fresh Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A number of another nations accessed to the treaty, among which Brazil, (then) West Germany, India, and Poland were the most actively active in Antarctic research. The treaty supposedly included the non-militarization of the continuing and freedom of technological investment.

Nothing in the treaty you, the 1959 paper said, to be interpreted as “a renutation or deduction by any Contracting organization of any basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica.” Thus, the 7 nations that have outstanding (and frequently overlapping) claims to Antarctica emanating outside like ropes of a pie—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, fresh Zealand, Norway, and the UK—may harp hops to have their claims recognized internationally “at any future time.”

That future time has begun.

The claims have been taken, and the next decade may see any of these claims become concrete. At the time of the Antarctic Treaty’s creation, the United States and the Union of russian Socialists Republics (USSR) claimed the right to get the entry Antarctic. The Russian Federation, which Succeeded the USSR, has not recommended that option.

A wide accepted but not fixed concept on which nations have territorial rights to Antarctica is based on sovereign land vulnerability to the continuous. Thus, the exposition is determined by a “pie-chart” set of lines from the South Pole to the east and western extremes of the facing landsmass. Under this arrangement, Australia is the largest stackholder in Antarctica, and the South Atlantic British territories, specified as the Falkland Islands and South George, give the UK vulnerability to the continuing. Chile, Argentina, fresh Zealand, and France besides have claims under this formula. It would not be unexpected for South Africa to rank a claim under this argument.

But thus far, it has all been based on the 1959 Treaty and “understandings.” Nothing has been defined and tested by conquest or the creatively frail “international courses.” We are in an age erstwhile Cold War and post-Cold War treats are being discarded—often happily due to the fact that they have been overtaken by history—while we plunge another into the age erstwhile supposedly binding treats are being interpreted as “suggestions.” And global governance mechanisms, specified as the United Nations and regional organizations, are incapable to halt universal power projection by force.

Significantly, communist China does not see Antarctica in isolation but as a component of its global—and globalist—projection.

China on Feb. 7 inaugurated its Ross Sea technological investigation station close the Ross Sea region and the U.S. McMurdo station and those of fresh Zealand, South Korea, Italy, Germany, and France, starting operations in an outpost in a part of the Antarctic due south of Australia and fresh Zealand for the first time. The Qinling station will be staffed year-round with quarters successful to home as many as 80 people in the summertime months. China has 4 another investigation stations in another parts of Antarctica built from 1985 to 2014—Zhongshan, Taishan, Kunlun, and large Wall—with 2 year-round stations like Qinling.

Chinese ice-breaker Xuelong, or “Snow Dragon,” sets off from a port in Shanghai on Nov. 8, 2017. Xuelong steamed south from Shanghai on Nov. 8, Bound for Antarctica to establish China’s newest base as Beijing winds to become a polar power. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Construction of Qinling first broker ground in 2018, but its launch was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2023, China sent its biggest Antarctic Fleet and more than 460 personnel to the site to aid complete the station.

However, in the broadcast sense, the 2020s began to see the unraveling of these Cold War and immediate post-Cold War treats, partially in the Northern Hemisphere, largley due to the fact that they are contrained the Western alliance and Russia but did not put limits on Beijing.

The consequence is that the planet is entering an era erstwhile not only are formal engagements going military behaviour disintegrating, and the alleged rules-based planet order is being repudied (partially by the Chinese regime), but so, too, is the influence of regional bodies, specified as the African Union (AU), the Organization of American States (OAS), and so on.

The OAS has, in fact, become meaningless. This links to the Antarctic question due to the fact that China has not only been building its polar capacities but has besides built linked installations in South America for its space capacities.

China’s Espacio Lejano Station, which, according to Wikipedia, “is a radio station located in Loncopué Department, Neuquén Province, Argentina, and is operated by the Chinese National Space Administration as part of the Chinese Deep Space Network, in collaboration with Argentina’s National Space Activities Commission (CONAE). The Chinese Deep Space Network is managed by the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General (CLTC), which reports to the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] strategical Support Force.” No Argentina officials, including that from CONAE, are permitted access to the 200-hectare facility, which has been operating since 2018.

Argentina’s fresh president, Javier Milei, was reported in 2024 to be anxious to guarantee Argentine access to the base. China is besides known to utilize South America for another space-related activities.

Argentina’s fresh president, Javier Milei, talks to the crowd from a balcony of the Casa Rosada government palace during his inauguration day in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10, 2023. (Cezaro de Luca/AFP via Getty Images)

The Argentine legislature did not apply the 50-year lease to China of the land for the station until February 2015, but work had already started on it in 2013, and it was completed in 2017.

Meanwhile, the Chinese regime’s penetration of the entry Caribbean network of tiny countries, as well as much of the Western Hemisphere south of the United States, has been completed for any time. The old U.S. Monroe Doctrine, initiated in 1823 to give Washington the “right” to keep European powers out of the confederate Americas, has full given way to the influence of Beijing.

So what happens erstwhile China breaks apart strategically, and how will this happen?

China is becoming creatively preoccupied with interior fluctuations and threes. Its economy, never as large as Beijing claimed in fresh years, is now in plants. The fact that the Chinese Communist organization (CCP) views the interior Threat as large than the external challenge is exemplified by the reality that it spends more on interior safety forces than the People's Liberation Army.

While building its gold reserves to disagree distant from the U.S. dollar (Beijing is inactive moving out of its holdings of U.S. debit), China is making a shortage of funds and is, in any event, uncovering the possible of a leadership challenge. This ports an open question, but what is clear is that a period of chaos can be anticipated.

It may be actual that the United States has graduated absorbed the impact of a reduced dependency on the Chinese marketplace and funds, but the remainder of the Americas have not, and never has Australia, for example. In a period of transformation, China may well effort any external adventures that could mark the end of the present strategical framework. This could well unravel Antarctica’s peculiar status.