China struck a defiant stance on Tuesday in response to American concerns about Beijing's efforts to expand its influence in the resource-rich South American nation of Chile, escalating tensions over a Chinese astronomical venture in Chile’s arid north.
At a press conference Tuesday in Chile's capital of Santiago, China's ambassador to Chile, Niu Qingbao, lambasted the United States for “interfering in Chile’s sovereign right to independently choose its partners” and spreading "disinformation about the project.”
The astronomy project stems from a 2023 agreement between China's state-run National Astronomical Observatory and Chile's Catholic University of the North to work on a powerful space observatory in the country's vast northern Atacama Desert. The proposed high-resolution telescope would be able to observe near-Earth objects, which are classified as asteroids or comets.
But the project quickly became entangled in China's spiraling rivalry with the Trump administration.
At a press conference Tuesday in Chile's capital of Santiago, China's ambassador to Chile, Niu Qingbao, lambasted the United States for “interfering in Chile’s sovereign right to independently choose its partners” and spreading "disinformation about the project.”
The astronomy project stems from a 2023 agreement between China's state-run National Astronomical Observatory and Chile's Catholic University of the North to work on a powerful space observatory in the country's vast northern Atacama Desert. The proposed high-resolution telescope would be able to observe near-Earth objects, which are classified as asteroids or comets.
But the project quickly became entangled in China's spiraling rivalry with the Trump administration.
9 days ago
