The agreement signed between Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2010 allowed China to open a space tracking and research base in Argentina. Finally, in 2017, the Espacio Lejano Station began operating, the same year that its construction was completed in Bajada del Agrio, in the province of Nuequén. However, it is not just a station for far-space observation or to help the Chinese reach the Moon.
"It is a facility that has military espionage objectives exactly like the one they have in Cuba, near the town of Bejucal," sources familiar with the agreement told Voz Media. "The Espacio Lejano Station has, of course, a civilian and peaceful objective, but that is above all a screen to hide or at least disguise its military objectives," the same sources stressed. During the leftist mandates in Argentina, led by the Kirchners and the current president, Alberto Fernandez, the country clearly started to lean toward Russia and China.
In December 2021, the government led by the Fernández family (Alberto as president and Cristina as vice president) signed an agreement with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation so that officers and non-commissioned officers of the Argentine Armed Forces could receive training in Russian military barracks. It was "an agreement to facilitate the training of our officers and non-commissioned officers in Russian military institutions and it is a step that will allow a closer relationship between the two armies," said the minister at the time, Jorge Taiana, who together with the Secretary of Defense, Francisco Cafiero, moved forward with the project.
This agreement put Moscow on par with Washington in its military relations with Buenos Aires. It matched, if not surpassed, the IMET (International Military Education and Training) program signed years earlier with the United States.
The uproar in Argentina over the Espacio Lejano Station project wasn't enough to stop the Kirchner government's plans. Numerous opposition deputies have already condemned the alleged existence of secret stations since the Chinese space agency depends directly on the Chinese Ministry of Defense and, therefore, on the Chinese Communist Party. The Macri Government (2015-2019) established a clause that required the peaceful use of the base and something similar to a surveillance plan. "The level of corruption and ineptitude among high-level officials in this country is so high that this clause was stillborn. The Espacio Lejando Station has been and continues to be an espionage base," these sources told Voz Media.
