Why Argentina’s “Anti-Communist” Leader Is Working with China
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I'm curious about Argentina. You know, their new president, Javier Mille, ran on an anti-communist platform. I think he was very critical of the CCP in his campaign. How is he getting on with China now? Well, actually, a few days after he got elected, he actually...

became very friendly with China. I mean, Argentina has a big problem, as many other Latin American countries have, that most of its exports, especially in soybeans, I believe, go to China. So the grip that China has currently in Argentina is pretty strong.

So, he cannot just cut ties directly with China overnight. I know that within his government, this is something I have been talking about with some public officials in Argentina, there is mixed views on how to engage with China and how to respond to China.

see this as a security problem and some others see the China issue as a necessary evil, something that they need to

Look in the long term how to decouple with China how to take action to diminish China's influence within the country, but not something that they can do overnight So these two views are kind of struggling in like within the melee government. Um

But yeah, I mean, you talk about doing it overnight, but it's been he's been in office about 15 months or so, right? It seems like a long time to be able to start cutting ties with communist China, if that's what he was serious about, right? I mean, there's not much that has been done so far. And to be honest, I think China was one of the first countries to congratulate Milley after he arrived in office. And he has

a few other problems that you might have heard of internally and of course politically. So since Millet's priorities seem to be in

get Argentina back on track in terms of economic development, then it doesn't seem that he can just cut ties with China. And I think that the executive decision there was to kind of live this as a more discursive or narrative issue than an actually policy-related issue. And it's the same with the space station that...

Well, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Neuquén space and research station, the Estación Espacio Alejano in Spanish. Although within the administration, and this is something I've talked to with a few public officials, there is an understanding that this is a problem. There is some controversy.

caution to actually do or engage in policies that will terminate that contract.

All right, so the space station, one of the things that's interesting about Argentina, just geographically, it's completely on the opposite side of the earth from China. Yeah. Right? So it's only really Argentina and Chile are geographically in the right place on the globe to have a kind of space station that can track satellites that are not trackable from Chinese stations, right, in China.

So it's like from China's perspective, they have to have a space station somewhere in like the southern part of South America. But when they built the space station in Argentina, I think it was 10 years ago or so, maybe 2014, they had said it was going to be for only civilian purposes. How's that turned out?

So the original contract, which was negotiated during the Kirchner administration and then was finalized by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, didn't say civilian use per se. It said scientific research. The thing is, the branch...

of the Chinese counterpart that built the station is managed by the PLA. So this is something that

It is written in the document, but it is written in the document as scientific research. But actually these researchers or scientists that are working at the station come from the People's Liberation Army. So this is something that was actually put on the table after the space station started operations. And the contract is crazy if you see it.

It allowed China to operate this station without any due diligence from Argentina for decades. I think they granted them a surface in the Neocan Desert. Like, Pampa is basically a desert. There's nothing around. There is one town more than 20 kilometers away. And it allows them to operate this station for decades.

I think it's a ridiculous amount. It's a lease, but it's a ridiculous amount. It's not justifiable at all. They cannot change this contract because it is within the law in the sense that they are paying, but they're paying peanuts. They're not paying much. Another problem is that the contract allows them to use their own frequency that is enclosed and they don't have to respond.

or accept any kind of monitoring from the Argentinian state. So there have been some attempts at entering the base and actually seeing what's being done there. But apart from these guided visits in which they can say that, oh, the antennas are the antennas that are supposed to be there, the people who are supposed to be there, there's not many control mechanisms that

the Argentinian government can have to kind of know what the PLA is doing there. And actually many of the people who work at the base, or if not all of them, enter through diplomatic channels. So they're not even controlled by the Argentinian government in their entrance to the country, right? So it's basically like a piece of mainland Chinese soil

on which they can operate with impunity and it's operated by the chinese military and the argentinian government uh has basically no control or oversight at all basically yes and it's the size of uh microstating europe like luxembourg

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