(19 FORTY FIVE) – In late 2020, a Chinese submersible, the Fendouzhe, descended over 30,000 feet to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, home to the deepest point in the earth’s oceans, known as Challenger Deep. Loaded with so much surveying equipment that the crew added additional buoyancy materials to keep it balanced, the Fendouzhe set a national record for the depth of its dive and broadcast a live feed of its exploits back to China. While the expedition was billed as focusing on the animal life of the Trench, state media noted that the surveying experience would be useful for China’s growing interest in deep-sea mining.
The deep seabed, essentially the very bottom of the ocean’s floor, is a potentially rich source of oil and gas; elements like cobalt, copper, and nickel, as well as of the rare earth elements (REEs) required for many new technologies. Chinese President Xi Jinping has spoken repeatedly of the connection between “utilization of the ocean” and China’s quest for both maritime and overall national power. In 2016, he spoke specifically of the deep sea, saying: “the deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped, and in order to obtain these treasures we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea.”
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