Outgoing White House National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien has warned the incoming Biden administration that China is positioning itself to make a claim on the Antarctic, backed up by reports from Australian Antarctic observers that China has “conducted undeclared military activities… is building up the case for a territorial claim and is engaging in minerals exploration.” Activities that the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) explicitly forbids while in it is in force.

Claims and sovereignty in the Antarctic are complicated as while the treaty forbade new claims and froze existing ones, most claimant powers, like Britain and Argentina, continue to almost exclusively operate within their perceived ‘areas’, conducting scientific research, environmental stewardship or grey-area exploitation that alongside a physical presence can be used to legally enforce and justify their claims to sovereignty when the question is revisited.

The economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have heighted fears of new claims though as it has undermined the traditional ATS powers’ presence as they scale-back their engagement. While China has continued to heavily invest in bases, infrastructure, and assets in the region, all factors key to aiding a sovereignty claim when the Antarctic treaty is renegotiated in 2048.

Covid has also meant that the checks and balances which keep the ATS functioning and aid in maintaining political trust on the continent have become difficult, for instance Beijing has used the pandemic as justification for denying ATS compliance observers access to their fishing vessels. These moves have increased distrust between China and other ATS powers at a time when regional tensions regarding China are already high. There is significant potential that the Antarctic, with further secretive moves, benign or not, from China, becomes a contributory point of contention for the growing wider global distrust between China and the western powers as these issues ‘spill-over’ in each other, regardless of an actual Chinese Antarctic claim being made, or not.