Power Competition Behind Scientific Cooperation - A Study Of Antarctic Scientific Investigation Station

Since discovered by human, peace and quietude no longer belong to this land. Until the World War Ⅱ, the land of Antarctica had always been on the verge of war. With respect to this danger, the first IGY(manipulated by super powers and required by international society) called for abeyance of disputes about sovereignty and territory as well as co-discovery of Antarctica. One great achievement of the first IGY is scientific research stations scattered on the Antarctic land.The "Antarctic Treaty" froze the sovereignty request; however, attempts to take over parts of Antarctic territory had never been stopped. But, considered the spirit of the first IGY, no country dared to express any action or idea barely intended to territory occupation. Then, in the name of "Scientific Research and Corporation" to proclaim and enhance their "national actual existence" in Antarctica was the only desirable choice. It was no doubt that the major function of all stations build around the first IGY was for scientific research and corporation, but territorial occupation was also a very important function of these stations.During the whole process of the evolution of Antarctic Politics, the Antarctic Scientific Research Stations gradually possessed five different levels of significance in Antarctic Politics. These five different levels of significance consist of tools for territory occupation and mineral resources division; places of responsibility for environmental protection; places for scientific research and corporation; tools for fight for or holding discourse power about global Antarctic affairs. But the distributions of these five different levels on different stations, based on diverse countries they belong to, are quite different. For countries like USSR(Russia), USA and the seven countries with sovereignty request, their stations’virtual significance is for territory occupation(part or the whole),mineral resources division and holding their dominant discourse power in Antarctic affairs globally. However, with respect to the existence of "Antarctic Treaty" and "Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty", scientific research and corporation as well as environmental protection are also obligatory to stations of the nine countries. Other countries such as Germany and Japan, their stations’significance of mineral resources’division is most important. Scientific research and corporation is the virtual significance of stations of PRC. Stations of international environment-protection organizations such as Green Peace are actually tools for fight for discourse power of global Antarctic affairs.Based on this situation, we should be fully aware of the complicated relationships among the five different levels of significance of Antarctic research stations. We should also highlight the significance of scientific research and corporation of Antarctic research stations through our own operations in Antarctica. During the period in which sovereignty request and mineral resources’ exploration are both frozen, we should concentrate our efforts on scientific research in Antarctica and investigations about mineral resources in this territory. Only through this method can we improve our say on Antarctic affairs and ensure our discourse power on Antarctic resources’ division which might be possible in the future.