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By Didi Kirsten Tatlow
Senior Correspondent, International Affairs
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China's space infrastructure in Latin America is the biggest outside of China and raises questions that need answers, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command said in rare public comments this week.
Admiral Alvin Holsey said SOUTHCOM would soon establish its own Space South command.
The scale of China's regional space infrastructure was underlined by a Newsweek investigation into a joint China-Chile observatory being built by a Chinese state-owned enterprise in Chile—whose government placed the project on hold after the report.
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"Space is really huge for me," Holsey told a security conference at Florida International University in Miami in May.
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As Holsey spoke, China's President Xi Jinping was offering Latin American and Caribbean countries a $9 billion credit line and unveiling five cooperative programs, including expanded infrastructure investment, at the China-sponsored Community of Latin American and Caribbean States forum in Beijing.
In an emailed statement, the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C. told Newsweek that it had signed "nearly 200 intergovernmental space cooperation agreements with over 50 countries and international organizations."
"China is committed to the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. We are ready to have international space exchanges and cooperation with other countries on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, peaceful use and inclusive development.... In the exploration of the universe, China will always work with the rest of the world for the benefit of humanity," the embassy said.
The United States and China are competing in space on multiple levels with implications for potential future conflicts as they build out communications, surveillance and guidance systems.
The world's biggest rival powers are also both leading projects to get people to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.
America's project is known as Artemis, and China, with its de facto ally Russia, is offering one called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). The People's Republic of China (PRC) and Russia plan to build a nuclear power plant on the moon.
SOUTHCOM would establish Space South command "in the next couple of weeks" as part of the newest component of the military, the U.S. Space Force, Holsey said, with United States Space Force-Southern to be based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
"And the big point there is, there's a lot of PRC China space and labor infrastructure in this region, and our partners want to know more about it, and I want to know more about it as well," Holsey told participants at the 10th Annual Hemispheric Security Conference.
"So right now, there's 10 PRC linked space sites across five countries in the region," Holsey said, listing their functions that included space object surveillance and identification, and telemetry, tracking and control sites, both important for military space operations.
"Why is that? That's, this region is second only to mainland China for space and labor infrastructure. So, I have to make sure as a combatant commander, what does that mean in the future?" Holsey said.
He said that China saw "unchecked opportunity" in the region and was making fast progress spreading its influence making it a major challenge to the U.S. including economically.
"China remains a long-term strategic competitor. They're a pacing threat, and they're setting the theater," Holsey said. "I believe Beijing's approach to the region is primarily driven by economics which provide access, influence, and the opportunity to coerce our partner nations into unfavorable terms. In short, I think they see unchecked opportunity."
According to the Newsweek investigation published last December about the observatory being built in Chile at Cerro Ventarrones, there were at least 16 Chinese space-enabling infrastructures in the region, though the number varies according to definitions.
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