Our correspondent went to the deserts of Patagonia to examine how China secured its new base, a symbol of its growing clout in the region.
QUINTUCO,
Argentina — The giant antenna rises from the desert floor like an apparition, a
gleaming metal tower jutting 16 stories above an endless wind-whipped stretch
of Patagonia.
The 450-ton
device, with its hulking dish embracing the open skies, is the centerpiece of a
$50 million satellite and space mission control station built by the Chinese
military.
The
isolated base is one of the most striking symbols of Beijing’s long push to
transform Latin America and shape its future for generations to come — often in
ways that directly undermine the United States’ political, economic and
strategic power in the region.
The station
began operating in March, playing a pivotal role in China’s audacious expedition to the far side of the
moon — an
endeavor that Argentine officials say they are elated to support.
But the way
the base was negotiated — in secret, at a time when Argentina desperately
needed investment — and concerns that it could enhance China’s intelligence
gathering capabilities in the hemisphere have set off a debate in Argentina
about the risks and benefits of being pulled into China’s orbit.
“Beijing
has transformed the dynamics of the region, from the agendas of its leaders and
businessmen to the structure of its economies, the content of its politics and
even its security dynamics,” said R. Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American
studies at the United States Army War College.
For much of
the past decade, the United States has paid little attention to its backyard in
the Americas. Instead, it declared a pivot toward Asia, hoping to strengthen economic,
military and diplomatic ties as part of the Obama administration’s strategy to
constrain China.
Since
taking office, the Trump administration has retreated from that approach in
some fundamental ways, walking away from a free trade pact with Pacific nations, launching a global trade war and
complaining about the burden of Washington’s security commitments to its
closest allies in Asia and other parts of the world.
All the
while, China has been discreetly carrying out a far-reaching plan of its own
across Latin America. It has vastly expanded trade, bailed out governments,
built enormous infrastructure projects, strengthened military ties and locked
up tremendous amounts of resources, hitching the fate of several countries in
the region to its own.
China made
its intentions clear enough back in 2008. In a first-of-its-kind policy paper that drew relatively little
notice at the time, Beijing argued that nations in Latin America were “at a
similar stage of development” as China, with much to gain on both sides.
Leaders in
the region were more than receptive. The primacy over Latin America that
Washington had largely taken for granted since the end of the Cold War was
being challenged by a cadre of leftist presidents who governed much of the
region — including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay and Bolivia —
and wanted a more autonomous region.
Beijing’s
invitation came at a fortuitous time: during the height of the financial
crisis. Latching onto China’s voracious appetite for the region’s oil, iron,
soybeans and copper ended up shielding Latin America from the worst of the
global economic damage.
Then, as
the price of oil and other commodities tanked in 2011, several countries in the
region suddenly found themselves on shaky ground. Once again, China came to
their aid, striking deals that further cemented its role as a central player in
Latin America for decades.
Even with
parts of Latin America shifting to the right politically in recent years, its
leaders have tailored their policies to fulfill China’s demand. Now Beijing’s
dominance in much of the region — and what it means for America’s waning
stature — is starting to come into sharp focus.
“It’s a
fait accompli,” said Diego Guelar, Argentina’s ambassador to China.
Back
in 2013, he
published a book with
an alarming-sounding title: “The Silent Invasion: The Chinese Landing in South
America.”
“It’s no
longer silent,” Mr. Guelar said of China’s incursion in the region.
Trade
between China and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean reached $244
billion last year, more than twice what it was a decade earlier, according to
Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Since 2015, China has
been South America’s top trading partner, eclipsing the United States.
Perhaps
more significantly, China has issued tens of billions of dollars in
commodities-backed loans across the Americas, giving it claim over a large
share of the region’s oil — including nearly 90 percent of Ecuador’s reserves —
for years.
China has
also made itself indispensable by rescuing embattled governments and vital
state-controlled companies in countries like Venezuela and Brazil, willing to
make big bets to secure its place in the region.
Here in
Argentina, a nation that had been shut out of international credit markets for
defaulting on about $100 billion in bonds, China became a godsend for
then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
And while
it was extending a helping hand, China began the secret negotiations that led
to the satellite and space control station here in Patagonia.
Argentine
officials say the Chinese have agreed not to use the base for military
purposes. But experts contend that the technology on it has many strategic
uses.
Frank A. Rose, an assistant secretary of state
for arms control during the Obama administration, said he spent much of his
time worrying about China’s budding space program. American intelligence and
defense officials watched with alarm as China developed sophisticated
technology to jam, disrupt and destroy satellites in recent years, he said.
“They are
deploying these capabilities to blunt American military advantages, which are
in many ways derived from space,” Mr. Rose said.
China is
not alone in regarding space as a critical battlespace for future wars. Last
month, the Trump administration announced it would create a sixth
military branch devoted to space.
Antennas
and other equipment that support space missions, like the kind China now has
here in Patagonia, can increase China’s intelligence-gathering capabilities,
experts say.
“A giant
antenna is like a giant vacuum cleaner,” said Dean Cheng, a former congressional
investigator who studies China’s national security policy. “What you are
sucking up is signals, data, all sorts of things.”
Lt. Col.
Christopher Logan, a Pentagon spokesman, said American military officials were
assessing the implications of the Chinese monitoring station. Chinese officials
declined requests for interviews about the base and their space program.
Beyond any
strategic contest with the United States, some leaders in Latin America are now
having doubts and regrets about their ties to China, worried that past
governments have saddled their nations with enormous debt and effectively sold
out their futures.
But Mr.
Guelar argued that hitting the brakes on engagement with China would be
shortsighted, particularly at a time when Washington has given up its
longstanding role as the region’s political and economic anchor.
“There has
been an abdication” of leadership by the United States, he said. “It
surrendered that role not because it lost it, but because it doesn’t wish to take
it on.”
‘A Window
to the World’
The
Argentine government was in crisis mode in 2009. Inflation was high. Billions
of dollars in debt payments were coming due. Anger was swelling over the
government, including its decision to nationalize $30 billion in private pension funds. And the worst drought in five
decades was making the economic situation even
more bleak.
Enter
China, which stepped forward to brighten the outlook. First, it struck a $10.2 billion
currency swap deal
that helped stabilize the Argentine peso, and then promised to invest $10
billion to fix the nation’s dilapidated rail system.
In the
middle of all this, China also dispatched a team to Argentina to discuss
something that had nothing to do with currency fluctuations: Beijing’s
ambitions in space.
The Chinese
wanted a satellite-tracking hub on the other side of the globe before the
launch of an expedition
to the far side of the moon, which never faces the Earth.
If
successful, the mission, scheduled to launch this year, will be a milestone in
space exploration, potentially
paving the way for the extraction of helium 3, which some scientists believe could
provide a revolutionary clean source of energy.
China Satellite
Launch and Tracking Control General, a division of the country’s armed forces,
settled on this windswept 494-acre patch in Argentina’s Neuquén Province.
Flanked by
mountains and far from population centers, the site offered an ideal vantage
point for Beijing to monitor satellites and space missions around the clock.
Félix
Clementino Menicocci, the secretary general of Argentina’s National Space
Activities Commission, a government agency, said the Chinese had pitched
officials with promises of economic development and the prospect of enabling a
history-making endeavor.
“They’ve
become major players in space in the span of a few years,” Mr. Menicocci said
of China’s space program.
After
months of secret negotiations, Neuquén Province and the Chinese government
signed a deal in November 2012, giving China the right to the land — rent free
— for 50 years.
When
provincial lawmakers caught wind of the project after construction was already
underway, some were aghast. Betty Kreitman, a lawmaker in Neuquén at the time,
said she was outraged that the Chinese military was being allowed to set up a
base on Argentine soil.
“Surrendering
sovereignty in your own country is shameful,” Ms. Kreitman said.
When she
visited the construction site, she said, she pressed Chinese officials for
answers but walked away feeling even more concerned.
“This is a
window to the world,” she recalled the Chinese supervisor at the site saying.
“It gave me chills. What do you do with a window to the world? Spy on
reality.”
Rapid
Growth, and Then Peril
The pitch
was certainly not subtle, but then, it was never meant to be.
China’s
policy document on Latin America in 2008 promised governments in the region to
“treat each other as equals,” a clear reference to the asymmetric relationship
between the United States and its neighbors in the hemisphere.
As “our
relationship with the United States diminished, our relationship with China
grew,” said Brazil’s former president, Dilma Rousseff, whose ties with the
Obama administration suffered after revelations that American officials had
spied on her, her inner circle and Brazil’s state-controlled oil company. “We
never felt that China had imperial designs on us.”
The new
alliance paid off, helping propel Latin America to the kind of growth rates
that Europe and the United States envied.
“Latin America won the China lottery,”
said Kevin P.
Gallagher, an
economist at Boston University. “It helped the region have its largest growth
spurt since the 1970s.”
Yet, Mr.
Gallagher said, the bounty came with significant peril. Industries like
agriculture and mining are subject to the boom-and-bust cycles of commodity
prices, which made relying on them too heavily a big gamble over the long term.
Sure
enough, global commodity prices eventually tumbled. In July 2014, as several
leftist leaders were presiding over distressed economies, China signaled even
more ambitious plans for the region. At a summit meeting in Brazil, President
Xi Jinping announced that Beijing aspired to raise annual trade with the region
to $500 billion within a decade.
In an
interview with
journalists, Mr. Xi hailed the trust his government had built in Latin America
by quoting a Chinese proverb: “A bosom buddy afar brings distant
lands near.”
For
emphasis, he quoted the Cuban national hero José Martí and the Brazilian author
Paulo Coelho, and recited a line from the epic Argentine poem “Martín Fierro”
by José Hernández: “Brothers be united because that is the first law.”
Soon, China
took a step that startled the Pentagon. In October 2015, China’s Defense
Ministry hosted officials from 11 countries in Latin America for a 10-day forum
on military logistics titled “Strengthening Mutual Understanding for Win-Win
Cooperation.”
The meeting
built on the ties China had been making with militaries in Latin America,
including donating equipment to the Colombian military, Washington’s closest
partner in the region.
Borrowing
from the playbook the United States had used across the world, China organized
joint training exercises, including unprecedented naval missions off the Brazilian coast in 2013 and the Chilean coast in 2014. Beijing has
also invited a growing number of midcareer military officers from Latin America
for career development in China.
The contacts
have paved the way for China to start selling military equipment in Latin
America, which had long regarded the United States defense industry as the gold
standard, said Mr. Ellis, the War College scholar.
Venezuela
has spent hundreds of millions on Chinese arms and matériel in recent years.
Bolivia has bought tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Chinese aircraft.
Argentina and Peru have signed smaller deals.
Mr. Ellis
said the Chinese had also probably pursued cooperation relationships with Latin
American nations, with an eye toward any possible confrontation with the United
States.
“China is
positioning itself in a world that is safe for the rise of China,” he said. “If
you’re talking about the 2049 world, from the perspective of Latin America,
China will have unquestionably surpassed the United States on absolute power
and size. Frankly, if it was a matter of sustained conflict, you reach a point
where you can’t deny the possibility of Chinese forces operating from bases in
the region.”
Just weeks
after the space station began operating in Patagonia, the United States made an
announcement that raised eyebrows here in Argentina.
The
Pentagon is funding a $1.3 million emergency
response center in Neuquén — the same province where the Chinese base is, and
the first such American project in all of Argentina. Local officials and
residents wondered whether the move was a tit-for-tat response to China’s new
presence in this remote part of the country.
American
officials said that the project was unrelated to the space station, and that
the center would be staffed only by Argentines.
No Need for
New ‘Imperial Powers’
Latin
America experts in the Obama White House watched China’s rise in the region
warily. But the administration raised little fuss publicly, sharing its
concerns with leaders mostly in private.
Besides,
former officials say, Washington did not have much of a counteroffer.
“I wished
the whole time I was working in Latin America that any administration had as
well thought-out, resourced and planned a policy as the pivot to Asia for Latin
America,” said John Feeley, who recently resigned as the American ambassador to
Panama after a nearly three-decade career. “Since the end of the 1980s, there
really has never been a comprehensive hemispheric long-term strategy.”
While
President Barack Obama was widely hailed in the region for restoring diplomatic relations with
Cuba in late
2014, Washington’s agenda never ceased being dominated by two issues that have
long generated resentment in Latin America: the war on drugs and illegal
immigration.
While the
Trump administration has yet to articulate a clear policy for the hemisphere,
it has warned its neighbors not to get too cozy with China. Former Secretary of
State Rex W. Tillerson publicly cautioned that Latin America did not need new
“imperial powers,” adding that China “is using its economic statecraft to pull
the region into its orbit; the question, is at what price?”
That
question is being vigorously debated in some corners. Former President Rafael
Correa of Ecuador was interrogated by prosecutors in February as part of an
investigation into whether the decision to promise the country’s crude reserves
to China through 2024 harmed national interests.
In Bolivia,
which has also seen a surge of Chinese investment, several industries have
withered as Chinese products have become cheaper and easier to buy, said Samuel
Doria Medina, a Bolivian businessman and politician who has run unsuccessfully
against President Evo Morales three times.
“Our
financial, commercial and, ultimately, political dependency keeps growing,” Mr.
Doria said. Bolivia and several other leftist leaders who have tied their lot
to China, he warned, have “mortgaged the future” of their nations.
Yet China’s
influence has not diminished, even as Latin America shifts to the right
politically. In recent months, Beijing persuaded Panama and the Dominican
Republic to sever ties with Taiwan, notable victories in one of China’s foreign
policy priorities.
China’s
clout, analyst say, is also a sign of how much the Trump administration has
alienated governments in the region by adopting harsh immigration policies and
pursuing hardball tactics on trade in a part of the world where Washington
already has an ample surplus.
Jorge
Arbache, the secretary for international affairs at Brazil’s Planning Ministry,
said Washington’s “lack of predictability” had prevented a more ambitious
partnership from taking root, while China had been far clearer about its
vision.
“Everyone
expects China to become even more influential,” Mr. Arbache said.
‘People Are Afraid’
Soon after
being nominated as Argentina’s ambassador to China in late 2015, Mr. Guelar
said, he steeled himself for an arduous task: pushing to renegotiate the space
station agreement.
The former
government, he said, had given away too much, recklessly failing to specify
that the base could be used only for peaceful purposes.
“It was
very serious,” he said. “At any moment it could become a military base.”
To his
surprise, he said, the Chinese agreed to the use base solely for civilian
purposes. But that did not assuage concerns in Bajada del Agrio, the closest
town to the station, where residents speak of the Chinese presence with a mix
of bewilderment and fear.
“People see
it as a military base,” said Jara María Albertina, the manager at the local
radio station. “People are afraid.”
The mayor,
Ricardo Fabián Esparza, said the Chinese had been friendly and even invited him
to look at the images the antenna produces. But he is more apprehensive than
hopeful.
“From that
telescope, they probably can even see what underwear you’re wearing,” he said.
The United
States is the one that should be most concerned, he said. The base, he said, is
an “eye looking toward that country.”