ELIZABETH BUCHANAN |

While environmentalists have welcomed the Australian government’s decision to abandon the Davis aerodrome project in Antarctica, China is likely now drafting its own year-round aviation plans for the site.

Canberra had already completed much of the required environmental impact work and articulated its ambition to build the continent’s first paved runway to facilitate unfettered aviation access to Antarctica. As a self-appointed Antarctic Treaty System environmental ‘leader’, Australia has now shown that it’s entirely permissible to plan, plot and develop a concrete runway to bolster Antarctic logistical capabilities and access. While Australia ultimately abandoned the plan, a precedent has been set. Any future unease stemming from Chinese action along the same lines, let alone on the same ground, could be painted as a double standard, and Beijing knows it.

Please click here to read the full “Australia’s scrapping of Antarctic aerodrome could pave the runway for China” article published at The Strategist, written by Griffith Asia Institute Adjunct Fellow, Dr Elizabeth Buchanan.