CCTV News (Focus Interview): On February 20, 1985, China's first Antarctic Expedition Station, Great Wall Station, was completed, marking the beginning of my country's polar investigation cause, and the vast Antarctic has since emerged with the Chinese people's continuous struggle. In the same year, China became a consultative country on the Antarctic Treaty and officially had a voice on the international Antarctic governance stage. Over the past 40 years, what achievements have been achieved in our country's Antarctic inspection and building dream ice fields? What challenges are they facing?

Not long ago, the six-legged robot dog designed by my country's Antarctic scientific expedition team made a new debut. Customized shoes and specially heat-insulated batteries allowed the expedition team members to have a "new assistant" when dealing with the harsh environment in Antarctica.

Using robot dogs to help Antarctic scientific research, using drones to find meteorites in Antarctica, using a special gravity piston cylindrical sampler to extract Antarctic seabed sediments like an "injection" to the earth... In recent years, the technological style of China's Antarctic expedition team has shown our extraordinary strength in the process of exploring Antarctic.

Human activities in the Antarctic region have a history of more than 100 years. Over the past 100 years, 30 countries have established more than 150 inspection stations in Antarctica to conduct scientific inspections, and China has truly obtained the "entry ticket" after the Great Wall Station was built 40 years ago. At that time, our country's material equipment and support capabilities were very weak, and there was not even a professional icebreaker needed to transport materials. The ships used to replace could not directly reach the site construction site. The team members had to drive simple small boats to transport the materials on the large ship ashore bit by bit.

It is precisely because of the hard work and overcoming difficulties that the Chinese Antarctic scientific expedition step by step into the center of the world stage. In October 1985, China became a consultative country for the Antarctic Treaty and officially had a voice on the international Antarctic governance stage. However, in the early stages of entering the "Antarctic Club", the gap between us and many major countries is still very big, so we can only catch up.

At that time, there were three areas with the most scientific investigation and research value in Antarctica: pole, freezing point and high point. Both of them already have inspection stations. As early as 1957, the United States built the world's only annual inspection station - Amundson-Scott Station, at the Pierce. The coldest place in the world in the freezing point, the former Soviet Union also built the Oriental Station here. Only the high point known as "the extreme inaccessibility of human beings" remained unconquered. In order to promote the development of Antarctic scientific expedition, our country has set its goal since 1991 and will build Kunlun Station at the height of Antarctic.

Wu Jun, former deputy director and first-level inspector of the Polar Inspection Office of the State Oceanic Administration: "In order to learn from the Kunlun Station, we formed a delegation to go to the US inspection station. When I saw the US inspection station and equipment, the shock I gave me was not a little bit. I really saw our gap and also inspired us to move forward."

After 18 years of unremitting efforts, the Antarctic workers in China were unyieldingly chewed down this internationally recognized "hard bone" and built the Kunlun Station at this high point of "the extreme inaccessibility of human beings".

Since the new era, with the improvement of my country's scientific research level and comprehensive national strength, my country's Antarctic scientific research strength has continued to grow, and website construction and scientific research work has made greater strides. Our achievements in Antarctica can be said to be different from the past.

At present, my country has built a total of 5 Antarctic inspection stations, namely Great Wall Station, Zhongshan Station, Kunlun Station, Taishan Station and Qinling Station, ranking third in the world.

The missions of these five inspection stations are different: Great Wall Station mainly focuses on ecological research; Zhongshan Station focuses on the study of glaciers and high-altitude atmospheric physics; Kunlun Station has added astronomical observation research, deep ice core drilling and research; and Taishan Station, the transit hub station built in 2014, is to better provide guarantees for Antarctic scientific expeditions; the Qinling Station, which was completed last year, lasted 12 years from site selection to completion, stood on the west coast of the Ross Sea, filling an important gap in the layout of Antarctic scientific expeditions in my country.