John Garnaut for The Sydney Morning Herald
CHINA plans to extend its reach into Antarctica - by building a new ice-breaker ship, purchasing a plane and helicopters and upgrading its base into a year-round facility - in line with its rapidly expanding global profile.
The head of China’s Antarctic program, Wei Wenliang, says the new Antarctic transport capability will enable Chinese scientists to live year-round at an expanded and upgraded ”Kunlun” base, located at the centre of Antarctica on a 4000-metre high ice plateau.
Conditions there are exceptionally harsh, with the minimum temperature last month dropping to minus 78 degrees.
In a rare interview with foreign media, Mr Wei, the Communist Party chief of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, said the increase in exploration and scientific capability meant China was now ready to ”shoulder responsibility” in administering the region.
A new paper by Anne-Marie Brady, from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, details how China’s scholarly papers and state-controlled media discuss Antarctica in terms that are ”virtually taboo” in the West.
”Chinese language polar social science discussions are dominated by debates about resources and how China might gain its share,” says the paper, China’s Rise in Antarctica?, in the forthcoming Asian Survey journal.
However, Mr Wei said China’s program does not include exploring for or exploiting the continent’s untapped mineral wealth or making a territorial claim, although he ”understands the misunderstandings” about China’s intentions.
He said the camp on the Dome A ice plateau is the world’s best location for astronomy and studying climate history.
Mr Wei also revealed his scientists have drilled hundreds of metres into what will be a 1000-metre-deep ice core sample - which will shed light on 1 million years of climate history and assist with projections of global warming - and they plan to drill further for rock samples below.
”If possible we would also like to extract rocks under the ice,” he said. ”After drilling the ice core we will use the same hole, place a different head on the drill, and go deeper into the rock.”
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