Last year marked the 40th anniversary of China’s accession to the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), which mandates that the Southern Continent be used for peaceful and scientific purposes only and guarantees protection of its natural resources. In that time, China has invested substantially in basing, communications, icebreakers, and logistics support capabilities in Antarctica. There is near unanimous agreement among Western experts that these investments are not intended for peaceful purposes or scientific research.1 China is instead positioning itself for dominance in the Southern Continent’s strategic domains, in contravention of the ATS, and has made the Southern Ocean and Antarctica a gray zone of great power competition.2
The United States, along with its regional partners, must reinvigorate its polar capabilities and activities in the Antarctic for more consistent presence and to uphold the rules-based international order, including the ATS, and deter China’s illegal and destabilizing ambitions there.
China Positions for Antarctic Dominance
China is carrying out a long-term strategy to control strategic Antarctic domains, including areas with critical natural resources. Its annual spending in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean is triple what it spends in the Arctic, with China having five stations and the seventh-largest icebreaker fleet.3 Recently, the activities on its fifth base station at Inexpressible Island have intensified to the highest rate in five years.4 Removing all ambiguity, the director of China’s Antarctic and Arctic Administration publicly announced that it intends to extract natural resources in Antarctica.5
China’s economy depends on energy, raw material and food imports, and manufacturing exports.6 The Southern Ocean’s krill fishery is the largest source of protein on earth, and there are significant oil and mineral resources in the region.7 China is targeting these resources to maintain inflows of food for its population and industrial feedstocks for its economy. To extract these resources, it is developing the capabilities to exert sea control in the Southern Ocean: maritime domain awareness, icebreakers, and communications.
China has for many years used sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and maritime strength to illegally militarize international waters in the South China Sea and to conduct illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing around the Galapagos Islands.8 It is reasonable to expect this strategy will be used in and around Antarctica as well.
In addition, China’s geography, along with its dependence on maritime imports/exports, renders SLOCs a strategic concern for the nation globally. It has long sought to strengthen and diversify its global trade network, the most well-known effort being the Belt and Road Initiative. The Southern Ocean provides three new potential routes for trade through the waters south of Australia, South Africa, and Chile—an additional incentive to dominate Antarctica and the waters of the Southern Ocean.9
Countering China Through Integrated Deterrence
The first focus area for integrated deterrence of China in Antarctica should be IUU fishing enforcement. The ATS Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) provides a framework for fisheries enforcement, and robust action would set a precedent for the coming decades during which key provisions of the ATS will be revisited (ATS environmental protections are eligible for renegotiation in 2048).
The U.S. Coast Guard’s polar capabilities and law enforcement and environmental protection authorities will be critical to check Beijing’s ambitions in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Current polar missions and capabilities, such as icebreaking and logistical support of scientific research, should be expanded into active support of ATS enforcement mechanisms (e.g., for IUU fishing) and preventing the contravention of international maritime norms through presence, visibility, and patrol.
The Coast Guard is recapitalizing its icebreaker fleet with the Polar Security Cutter Program, which seeks to expand fleet/mission capabilities and will increase polar presence and capability to compete in the high Southern latitudes.10 According to the Coast Guard acquisitions office:
Polar security cutters (PSCs) enable the U.S. to maintain defense readiness in the Arctic and Antarctic regions; enforce treaties and other laws needed to safeguard both industry and the environment; provide ports, waterways and coastal security; and provide logistical support—including vessel escort—to facilitate the movement of goods and personnel necessary to support scientific research, commerce, national security activities and maritime safety.11
It is noteworthy that some of the new ship’s operational systems are derived from the Aegis Combat System, a clear indicator of the importance of the polar security cutter’s national defense mission.12 The program is approximately five years behind schedule, with final design anticipated in late 2024 and delivery of the first vessel in 2029.13 The Coast Guard must accelerate the Polar Security Cutter Program, as these ships will be the primary instruments of U.S. maritime power in the Antarctic for the foreseeable future.
Efforts to support regional partners are also key to countering China in the Antarctic. The United States has natural allies in the region with interest in the rules-based international order, environmental protection, and countering IUU fishing. However, they currently lack the capabilities to play a significant role. The Coast Guard is well positioned to provide expertise and training in counter-IUU fishing operations, based on its international engagement doctrine, bilateral agreements, and 150 years of fisheries enforcement experience.14 What is lacking are institutions, programs, and financial resources to assist willing regional partners to develop capacity and capability.
Department of Defense (DoD) security assistance and cooperation programs provide significant capacity building, training, operations support, and equipment to partner-nation security forces. The combatant commands, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, and service components have decades of experience providing just these types of cooperation and assistance. These programs can be used to prepare regional partners with capacity and matériel to absorb Coast Guard expertise. Eventually, they will be able to operate with Coast Guard polar security cutters patrolling the marine protection areas proposed by Chile and Argentina through CCAMLR to protect krill and other critical Southern Ocean fish stocks. The opportune window to begin planning and building these interoperable capabilities with regional partners is now, when the polar security cutters are under construction.
Multilateral exercises would cement these training, capacity building, and security cooperation efforts. The Coast Guard has the authorities and capability to provide expertise and training but lacks the resources to host full-scale integration exercises. However, such exercises sit squarely within DoD’s authorities and resource base. Southern Command’s annual Tradewinds exercise integrates Coast Guard expertise and training of partner-nation personnel and could be a model for an Antarctic-focused exercise.
Finally, joint operations should be undertaken with partner nations as soon as practicable. Here, the Coast Guard has the authorities and expertise to lead the U.S. effort. The Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Strategic Outlook states that the Coast Guard shall:
Collaborate and coordinate with foreign navies, coast guards, and other enforcement agencies to optimize our collective capacity to design and implement effective MCS programs and improve the process for receiving and responding to reports of illicit activity, investigations, and the legal infrastructure to adjudicate IUU fishing cases.15
Keep Antarctica Open
MPA planning domains: 1) Western Peninsula–South Scotia Arc; 2) North Scotia Arc; 3) Weddell Sea; 4) Bouvet Maud; 5) Crozet–del Cano; 6) Kerguelen Plateau; 7) Eastern Antarctica; 8) Ross Sea; and 9) Amundsen–Bellingshausen.
Source: Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, “MPA planning domains,” 9 August 2018.
Antarctica is a global common with strategic domains protected by a broadly supported international treaty. This structure must be upheld, and China’s objectives thwarted, to protect the rules-based international order. The United States, along with partners and allies, needs to vigorously support the ATS and dedicate resources and increase its presence in and around Antarctica to challenge China’s attempts to exert influence in the area. Combining Coast Guard bilateral agreements, expertise, and authorities in law enforcement and environmental protection with DoD’s security cooperation and exercise programs to equip, train, and jointly operate with regional partners would be a powerful counter to China.
In addition, as China, Russia, Iran, and other revisionist nations seek to exert illegal control over international waters and sovereign nations in their near abroad, maritime gray zones around the world are expanding. Combining Coast Guard security expertise and authorities with DoD programs and resources could be a winning formula to counter belligerent nations. This formula should be replicated in strategic maritime areas and domains around the globe, to achieve integrated deterrence and defend the rules-based international order on which U.S. and allied interests depend.
1. Elizabeth Buchanan, “All Quiet on the Southern Front? Revisiting Antarctic Competition,” Polar Journal 13, no. 1 (January 2023).
2. Marigold Black et al., Antarctica at Risk: Geostrategic Manoeuvering and the Future of the Atlantic Treaty System (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023).
3. LT Benjamin Carrington, USN, “Snow Dragons at the South Pole,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144, no. 3 (March 2021); The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs, “COMNAP Antarctic Facilities,” ArcGIS Web Application (2023); and U.S. Coast Guard, “Major Icebreakers of the World,” 2017.
4. Ian Bremmer, “China’s Ambitious Plans in Antarctica Have Raised New Suspicions,” Time, 28 April 2023.
5. Joe Chandler, “China Flags Polar Resource Goals,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 2010.
6. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, “China Increasingly Relies on Imported Food. That’s a Problem,” Council on Foreign Relations, 25 January 2023.
7. Tetsuro Kosaka, “Nations around the World Jostle to Carve Up Antarctic Resources,” Nikkei Asia, 27 March 2014; Black et al, Antarctica at Risk; and Gloria Dickie, “In Antarctica, Does a Burgeoning Krill Fishery Threaten Wildlife?” Reuters, 24 February 2022.
8. Janet Coit, “National 5-Year Strategy for Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing 2022–2026,” U.S. Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing, 2022.
9. Carrington, “Snow Dragons at the South Pole”; and Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr, and Aidan Powers-Riggs, “Frozen Frontiers: China’s Great Power Ambitions in the Polar Regions,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 18 April 2023.
10. Ronald O’Rourke, “Report to Congress on Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter,” Congressional Research Service, 23 December 2022.
11. U.S. Coast Guard, “Polar Security Cutter.”
12. Sam LaGrone, “VT Halter Marine Details Coast Guard Icebreaker Bid,” USNI News, 8 May 2019.
13. Ronald O’Rourke, “Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (Polar Icebreaker) Program: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, 22 May 2024.
14. U.S. Coast Guard, Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Strategic Outlook (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Coast Guard, September 2020).
15. U.S. Coast Guard, Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Strategic Outlook.
