China Plans For Treasure Hunt in Pacific Ocean

BEIJING – China plans an ultra-deep dive by a manned submersible beneath the Pacific Ocean that would propel it past the US in a race to explore potentially vast mineral resources in the deepest parts of the world's oceans, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The Jiaolong -- named after a mythical sea dragon -- left China on board an oceanographic research ship on July 1. It arrived Saturday at its destination in the northeastern Pacific, between Hawaii and North America, where it was set to attempt a dive to 16,404 feet (5,000 meters), according to state media reports.

The state-run Xinhua news agency Saturday quoted Liu Feng, the director of the diving trials, as saying the sea was too rough to attempt the first of its planned four dives before Wednesday. "We'll use this time to do our preparatory work down to the last detail, and as soon as sea conditions improve, we'll start sea trials," he was quoted as saying.

The planned dive would be the latest milestone for China in a high-stakes technological race once dominated by the US, which in 1960 sent two men to the bottom of the Mariana Trench -- at 36,198 (11,033 meters) the deepest point in the world's oceans -- in the now-retired Trieste sub.

The US led undersea exploration and mining efforts for several decades thereafter, but commercial interest waned in the 1980s and 1990s because international prices for nickel, copper and other commodities thought to be most easily mined from the deep seabed at the time were insufficiently high.

Now, many experts said the US risks falling behind potential commercial and military competitors as rising commodity prices make undersea mining more profitable, and China and Russia apply for rights to explore newly discovered deep sea deposits thought to hold larger quantities of silver, gold, copper, zinc and lead in particular.

The race has commercial, scientific and military implications comparable to space exploration, in which China is also now a world power as one of only four countries -- alongside the US, Russia and India -- capable of manned space flight.

Although Chinese officials said the Jiaolong was for civilian purposes only, foreign military experts said such a craft could be used to intercept or sever undersea communications cables, to retrieve foreign weaponry on the ocean floor, or to repair or rescue naval submarines.