Foreign space activities in Argentina: Geopolitical imaginaries on the role of China and Europe in the national press (2007–2016)

Abstract

This article endeavors to understand the construction of a geopolitical imaginary over the People’s Republic of China deep space station on Bajada del Agrio, Province of Neuquén, from the perspective of geopolitics. This paper introduces a comparative perspective: the Chinese space facilities are not a unique case within the borders of this sovereign state: there is a similar space installation called Deep Space Antenna under European Union flag in Malargüe, Province of Mendoza. In order to track the construction of such geopolitical imagination, this article analyzes the discourses offered in newspapers of national circulation in the South American country: Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12 from 2007 to 2016. This work also describes and analyzes domestic and foreign political discourses, and the sources of information the media selects to explain the issues the facilities raise. Argentina is a state of the Global South with an autonomous track of space development. Acquiring technology from a rising power could be disruptive, generating tensions with the core states, which were former exclusive partners and clients.