Posted on May 28, 2025
The “White Continent,” as Antarctica is known, is a beautiful, fragile place, home to 44 million penguins and a few thousand researchers, yet owned by no one.
While a lot of attention has been paid in recent years to the geopolitical and economic significance of the Arctic, interest in Antarctica is now also heating up.
“Intrigue, greed and hostility burn in the Antarctic,” wrote the Economist recently, describing “a new scramble for the Antarctic, intensified by the re-emergence of geopolitical rivalry between great powers, climate change, and a race to exploit its resources.”
Since 1961, the region has been governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which guaranteed its use for scientific research and other peaceful purposes and froze the claims of the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Norway, France, New Zealand, and Chile to the continent’s territory.
But like all treaties, it’s only as strong as the signatories allow it to be, and it is now being undermined, say observers.
“Treaties are fickle things: the political conditions that bring them into being rarely endure,” wrote British Royal Navy icebreaker captain Tom Sharpe, who has worked on the continent, in the Telegraph. “The Antarctic Treaty, is starting to creak. The world is changing …”
He says the treaty has lasted so long because it has been so difficult to violate it, given the continent’s remoteness and harsh conditions. “(However), as soon as Antarctica’s vast resources become economically worth the risk of exploiting, this would change,” he added. “We may be seeing the start of this now.”
In March, for example, China and Russia announced separate but coordinated plans to strengthen and expand their presence in Antarctica in “an active new phase of close collaboration,” wrote the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
One example of that cooperation already was on display late last year when China and Russia teamed up at a meeting of the 26-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in Tasmania to block the creation of new Antarctic marine parks and loosen krill fishing restrictions, undermining a major international convention designed to protect the region from overexploitation and environmental degradation, the Guardian reported.
Krill is a key food source for Antarctica’s wildlife including penguins, seals, and whales, and fishing restrictions have been seen as important to ease pressure on these creatures already struggling from global warming and other threats.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s most recent five-year plan included an expansion of international fishing – with a particular focus on krill, Lyn Goldsworthy of the University of Tasmania told the newspaper: “They have a directive to expand that krill fishery (in Antarctica).”
Analysts say that both China and Russia are interested in the region, noted World Politics Review, especially for future mineral exploitation as global warming and advances in technology make it more feasible. Antarctica is thought to hold vast deposits of oil, gas, coal, iron, copper, and other minerals. However, mining is banned until 2048. Last year, the US, with the largest presence on the continent, placed sanctions on Russia’s research vessel, the Akademik Alexander Karpinsky, which US officials say had been surveying for oil and gas in the region.
Meanwhile, establishing military bases in Antarctica is banned by treaty. To get around this, analysts say China uses its military and its equipment, but for research purposes. For example, China recently unveiled its fifth base, ostensibly for scientific purposes, but with dual-use civil-military satellite monitoring facilities
Now, analysts say that the treaty, which they believe is frequently violated, must be updated or the situation on the continent will become a free-for-all. But getting a new agreement governing the White Continent won’t be easy, they add, with China and Russia likely to block most initiatives.
“The Antarctic Treaty is under considerable stress and strain,” Klaus Dodds of Royal Holloway College, University of London told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “(And it’s) probably entering the worst period it’s ever experienced.”
