China is pressuring Argentina to construct a naval station near Tierra del Fuego province’s Ushuaia, according to a November 2022 report from the French news outlet Intelligence Online. Beijing will be able to control the passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans thanks to the base’s proximity to Antarctica. Independent intelligence and local media reports claim that China is constructing a port in Tierra del Fuego that might serve as a naval station in an effort to create a “gateway” to Antarctica.
Notably, the distance between the Antarctic coast and Argentina’s southernmost point is just 680 miles. According to reports in the journal, provincial governor Gustavo Melilla and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official Shuiping Tu had already finalized the entire situation. The proposed area will only be accessible to Chinese military personnel.
China has made enormous expenditures in the area though it won’t have any impact on the country’s sovereignty
Tu oversees HydroChina Corp., a state-owned business, throughout South America. China has made enormous expenditures in the area, allowing the CCP to gain clout and place itself in a key strategic location. Chinese investments in Argentina won’t have any impact on the country’s sovereignty, officials had earlier emphasized. According to experts, a facility in the area will enable China to intercept regional communications, which will have a clear economic and strategic impact and result in significant meddling in international affairs on the part of the nation.
“A possible Chinese base in Ushuaia would allow Beijing to have a permanent enclave in the Southern Hemisphere, with a projection toward the South Atlantic, which, depending on the conditions negotiated with Argentina, could allow for the construction of facilities, as well as the presence of naval units and military contingents in this quadrant,” Alberto Rojas, director of the International Affairs Observatory at Chile’s Finis Terrae University, told Diálogo, a digital military magazine published by the US Southern Command.
“The Belt and Road [BRI] project announced by China in 2013 seeks to have a clear projection toward this area of the continent,” Rojas said. “And if this base in Ushuaia materializes, it could become the first of many others, both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts or the Andean area.”
The most notable Chinese base was created in 2017, the first navy base abroad in Djibouti, East Africa
China presently operates three bases abroad. The most notable one was created in 2017, China’s first navy base abroad in Djibouti, East Africa. The goal was to stop Somali pirate attacks on cargo ships transiting the Gulf of Aden, and that endeavor succeeded. Moreover, the route links the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. The Ream naval base in Cambodia is another crucial location for Beijing in Southeast Asia. According to Rojas, China has a considerable degree of autonomy over the base and the land around it, to the point that it has even constructed a new port.
“And there is the base in Tajikistan, under construction in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region, which shares borders with China and Afghanistan, with which Beijing seeks to reinforce its presence in Central Asia,” Rojas said.