The Chilean government decided to end the project to build an astronomical observatory in partnership with China, in the north of the country, following warnings from the United States about possible strategic implications of the initiative. According to the Chilean Foreign Ministry, in addition to the concerns raised by Washington, the agreement with Beijing for the construction of the observatory did not follow the legal rules required for this type of international cooperation.
The initiative envisaged the construction of an observatory in Cerro Ventarrones, in the Antofagasta region, based on an agreement signed in January 2023 between the Catholic University of the North (UCN) and the National Astronomical Observatory of China, linked to the Academy of Sciences of the communist country. The project, however, has been suspended since April last year.
According to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the agreement “is not valid”, because private universities are not authorized to sign international agreements of this nature. According to the Foreign Ministry, projects of this type need to be negotiated directly between States or conducted by public institutions with legal competence, such as the University of Chile.
According to Chancellor Alberto van Klaveren, the project did not follow the path foreseen in Chilean legislation and also involved the inappropriate use of tax land. The area had been granted by the Ministry of National Assets to UCN for a purpose different from that which ended up being presented in the agreement with the Chinese entity, which led to the revocation of the concession.
The project review occurred after warnings transmitted by the United States to the Chilean government at the beginning of last year. At the time, the then American ambassador to Chile, Bernadette Meehan, warned that the infrastructure should not only be seen as a scientific enterprise, but also as a possible platform for satellite monitoring, with strategic and defense implications.
According to reports in the Chilean press, the American alert led the foreign ministry to review the details of the agreement, which until then were not fully known by the federal government. The legal analysis ended up concluding that the project exceeded the responsibilities of the university involved.
China reacted to Washington’s warnings by classifying them as an “interference in Chilean sovereignty”. The Chinese embassy in Santiago stated that the observatory had exclusively scientific purposes and was comparable to other foreign telescopes operating in the country, including projects financed by the United States itself.
