SPY IN THE SKY

CHINA FACES ACCUSATIONS of ESPIONAGE and WEAPONIZING OUTER SPACE as it BUILDS a NEW OBSERVATORY in CHILE critics say WILL BE USED for MILITARY PURPOSES

- DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

CHINA'S AMBITION TO BE the world's greatest space power is taking it to the Moon, to other planets-and to the sepia dust of Chile's Atacama Desert.

Here, in a lunar-looking landscape in the South American country, diggers are smoothing a rocky plain beneath an 8,600-foot Andean peak for a new astronomical observatory where Chinese scientists will monitor objects orbiting Earth and seek new stars-and where they could also conduct research that helps China's fast-growing military space program under an agreement that leaves Chilean counterparts largely in the dark.

Newsweek has tracked China's rapid expansion as a global power, from a verdant Caribbean island where it is building a foothold on America's doorstep, to the icy Arctic North where its growing presence is a challenge to the U.S. and NATO allies. There's a network of ports that are civilian and military logistical bases around the world and hundreds of organizations with Communist Party links that are as embedded in the heart of America as in tiny Pacific islands.

And now this remote spot in the world's driest desert.

The observatory will be just one of Beijing's jumping-off points for its goal of taking a leap into space and ensuring that it dominates the heavens as well as the earth, part of its stated aim of becoming the preeminent power by the middle of the century and remaking the international order to its own design.