{"id":39989,"date":"2018-11-01T05:44:24","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T10:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39989"},"modified":"2018-11-01T05:44:24","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T10:44:24","slug":"china-boosts-antarctic-presence-with-planned-permanent-airbase-cites-strategic-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39989","title":{"rendered":"China Boosts Antarctic Presence With Planned Permanent Airbase, Cites “Strategic Needs”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China Boosts Antarctic Presence With Planned Permanent Airbase, Cites “Strategic Needs”<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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China is set to\u00a0significantly expand its\u00a0presence in Antarctica as it takes the crucial step of establishing its first permanent airport and large landing strip<\/strong> close to its small research outpost, Zhongshan station. After nearly a decade of planning construction of the airport is set to begin in November, which state media and officials are calling\u00a0a “permanent” base.<\/p>\n

Notably, according to Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency<\/em><\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0airfield will support<\/a> China’s Antarctic “strategy needs” and protect China’s right to speak on “Antarctic airspace control”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Ceremonial groundbreaking at new Chinese Antarctic airport, via state media<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The precise location is near the Zhongshan Research Station, which opened in 1989 and is one of two such research outposts, on the east Antarctic coast near the Larsemann Hills, and the project will be overseen\u00a0by the official Polar Research Institute of China. Chinese media reports details that the airport is to be constructed at a spot about\u00a028 km away from Zhongshan, with a sizable runway at 1,500m long and 80m wide. It is to primarily serve scientists and staff working in the isolated region.<\/p>\n

However, it’s no doubt already gotten the attention of American military planners and China observers as it began making headlines Monday, especially after last month Beijing rolled out with its first domestically built icebreaker<\/strong>, this also following\u00a0\u00a0the Chinese government <\/a>\u00a0releasing \u201cChina\u2019s Arctic Policy\u201d in early 2018\u00a0\u2014<\/em>\u00a0a white paper outlining how China’s\u00a0Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)\u00a0will construct infrastructure projects along the northern Arctic routes, and urged its largest shipping companies to conduct trial voyages through the frigid waters.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China Boosts Antarctic Presence With Planned Permanent Airbase, Cites “Strategic Needs” China is set to\u00a0significantly expand its\u00a0presence in Antarctica as it takes the crucial step of establishing its first permanent airport and large landing strip close to its small research outpost, Zhongshan station. After nearly a decade of planning construction of the airport is set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2756,130,4318,22728],"class_list":["post-39989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-antarctica","tag-china","tag-zerohedge","tag-zhongshan-station"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39990,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39989\/revisions\/39990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}