China has completed its first crewed deep-sea scientific expedition to the Atlantic Ocean, expanding its exploratory efforts amid growing US concerns over its motives.
After a 164-day excursion across 57,000km (35,418 miles) of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, the Shenhai Yihao – mother ship of China’s Jiaolong research submersible – docked in the eastern port city of Qingdao on Tuesday.
During the excursion, 46 dives were conducted – a record for a single expedition – allowing researchers to collect environmental data and biological and geological samples, according to a report by Guanhai News, a news site owned by Qingdao Daily.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
“This voyage is the first time we have used Jiaolong to conduct a survey in the Atlantic Ocean,” Sun Yongfu, chief scientist of the ocean expedition and a researcher at the National Deep Sea Centre, told Guanhai News.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a mostly underwater mountain range formed by the continuous separation of tectonic plates, spans the ocean that separates Europe and Africa from the Americas.
The ridge contains hydrothermally active areas with extremely high temperatures and unique ecosystems that are of interest to scientific researchers.
“Through the survey, we have gained a deeper understanding of the distribution of hydrothermal biological activities and biological connectivity throughout the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” Sun said.
The researchers located hydrothermal areas across the ocean, conducting dives in 15 areas to collect environmental data such as temperatures and methane and hydrogen levels.
During the dives, they also collected samples of worms, shrimp and mussels that live in hydrothermal areas, as well as geological samples such as basalt and sulphide, according to the report.
“This is of great significance to our future deep-sea scientific research,” Sun said.
China’s deep-sea activities could go beyond scientific exploration next year. The country is among 169 parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) awaiting a decision on when they may begin deep-sea mining for minerals on the ocean floor, according to the World Resources Institute.
Unclos lays down rules governing use of the oceans and its resources, including scientific exploration.
China is positioned to gain the lion’s share of the trillions of dollars’ worth of cobalt, sulphides and other minerals found on the ocean floor as it holds more oceanic exploration sites than any other country, according to CBS News.
Notably absent from the list of Unclos parties is the United States, whose senate has not yet ratified the treaty. This means that the US will not be able to participate in deep-sea mining or the exploratory expeditions needed to prepare for it.
“If we’re not at the table and we’re not members of the [International] Seabed Authority, we’re not gonna have a voice in writing the environmental guidelines for deep seabed mining,” said John Negroponte, former director of US National Intelligence, in an interview with the CBS News programme 60 Minutes in March.
Others are concerned that China’s marine exploration could lend it an edge in ocean intelligence.
“If you’re going to find submarines in the ocean, you need to know what the bottom looks like. You need to know what the temperature is. You need to know what the salinity is,” Thomas Shugart, former US Navy submariner and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told 60 Minutes.
“If China is using civilian vessels to sort of on the sly do those surveys, then that improves, could improve their ability to find US and Allied submarines over time as they better understand that undersea environment,” Shugart said.
The data collected during China’s latest ocean expedition could help fill research gaps on the Atlantic and offer insight into the hydrothermal environment, which could help determine how environmental management should be conducted along the ridge, according to Guanhai News.
Sun said that through this expedition, “our deep-sea diving technical capabilities have been fully verified”.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Does China’s oil-for-infrastructure lending model in Africa need a rethink?
- China’s investment in Africa’s lithium mines begins to pay off with new mineral supply chains created
- China’s first sodium-ion battery energy storage station could cut reliance on lithium
- How the US can set standards on international deep-sea mineral mining
- South China Sea: Beijing urges Washington to refrain from interfering in disputes
For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2024.
