Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said this Thursday (2) that an inspection carried out at a Chinese space base in the country did not identify the presence of military personnel.
The inspection of the space base located in the Patagonian province of Neuquén was carried out following a request from the American ambassador in Buenos Aires, Marc Stanley, in an interview with the newspaper La Nacion at the end of March.
The United States suspects that the unit, which began to be built (in an area ceded to China for a period of 50 years) in 2014, when Cristina Kirchner was president, and which was completed in 2017, has military purposes.
In an interview with the newspaper Clarín, Mondino, who just returned from a trip to China, said that a team carried out inspections at the space stations of the Asian country and the European Space Agency, located in the city of Malargüe (province of Mendoza), and did not notice “nothing strange”.
“What we are going to do is form Argentine science and technology or research teams that can take advantage of these resources. Because at the Chinese base the equipment can be used, but for a certain period of time. And Argentina wasn’t using it,” she explained.
Asked by Clarín if there were only scientists at the Chinese space base, Mondino replied: “Those involved in the investigation did not identify that there were military personnel. They are Chinese, they are all the same”, he joked, in a statement that was criticized by the Argentine press and on social media.
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