Chinese aquanauts plant flag in deep-sea depths

When three Chinese scientists plunged to the bottom of the South China Sea in a tiny submarine this summer, they did more than plant their nation's flag on the seabed.

The men, who descended more than two miles in a craft the size of a small truck, also signaled China's intention to take the lead in exploring remote and inaccessible parts of the ocean floor, which is rich in oil, minerals and other resources the Chinese would like to mine. And many of those resources happen to lie in areas where China has clashed repeatedly with its neighbors over territorial claims.

After the flag planting, which was done in secret but recorded in a video, China turned the feat of technology into a show of bravado.

"It is a great achievement," Liu Feng, director of the dives, was quoted as saying by China Daily, an English-language newspaper, which telegraphs government positions to the outside world.

The global seabed is littered with what experts say is trillions of dollars' worth of mineral nodules and many objects of intelligence value: undersea cables carrying diplomatic communications, lost nuclear weapons, sunken submarines and hundreds of warheads left over from missile tests.

While a single small craft cannot reel in all these treasures, it does put China in an excellent position to go after them.

"They're in it for a penny and a pound," said Don Walsh, a pioneer of deep-ocean diving who recently visited the submersible and its makers in China. "It's a very deliberate program."

The small craft that made the trip — named Jiaolong, after a mythical sea dragon — was unveiled in August after eight years of secretive development. It is designed to go deeper than any other in the world, giving China access to 99.8 percent of the ocean floor.

Not a submarine

Technically, the Jiaolong is a submersible. These undersea craft differ from submarines in their small size, their need for a mother ship on the surface, and their ability to dive extraordinarily far under the waves despite the darkness and the crushing pressures. The world has only a few.

Jiaolong is meant to go as deep as 4.35 miles, edging out the current global leader. Japan's Shinkai 6500 can go as deep as 4.03 miles, outperforming craft "all over the world," according to its makers. Russia, France and the United States lag behind in the game of going deep.

U.S. experts familiar with the Chinese undersea program say it is unusual in that China has little experience in the field. As a result, China is moving cautiously. Jiaolong's sea trials began quietly last year and are to continue until 2012, its dives going deeper in increments.

"They're being very cautious," Walsh said. "They respect what they don't know and are working hard to learn."

Walsh, the deep-ocean pioneer, said the Chinese were especially interested in avoiding the embarrassment of a disaster that ends with the aquanauts' entrapment or death. "If I'm the new kid on the block, I'm going to make sure that I've got bragging rights," he said.

China already is waving flags. The move resembles how Russian scientists, in summer 2007, plunged through the ice pack at the North Pole and planted their flag on the bottom of the ocean. Upon surfacing, the explorers said the feat had strengthened Russia's claims to nearly half the Arctic seabed.

Wang Weizhong, a Chinese vice minister of science and technology, said the Jiaolong's sea trials "marked a milestone" for China and global exploration. The recent successes of the craft, he said in late August, "laid a solid foundation for its practical application in resource surveys and scientific research."

At least one senior Chinese expert questioned what he called "the current propaganda." The expert, Weicheng Cui, a professor at the China Ship Scientific Research Center, which is building the submersible, said in an e-mail that the flurry of publicity over the flag planting "is not so helpful for us to complete the project."

China's splash in the arcane world of submersibles comes after years of singling out major industries and technologies for rapid development. China is rushing to make supercomputers and jumbo jets.

With expanding political ambitions and territorial claims in neighboring seas, China has paid special attention to oceanography and building a blue-water navy, one that operates in the deep waters of open oceans.

Help from the U.S.

At the heart of any submersible lies the hollow sphere where the aquanauts work. It houses a pilot and two observers, who can peer out of tiny portholes. Typically, a dive into the abyss is an all-day affair, requiring hours to and from the bottom.

U.S. experts said China went on a global shopping spree to gather sophisticated gear for its submersible. From the United States, it bought advanced lights, cameras and manipulator arms. Cui estimated 40 percent of the submersible's equipment came from abroad.

China also turned to the United States for tutoring. In 2005, five Chinese trainee pilots and one scientist participated in eight dives on Alvin, the oldest and most famous of the world's deep-diving craft, which is run by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Mass. China "bought time on Alvin to gain experience," according to the Deep Submergence Science Committee, a group that advises the federal government and universities on ocean exploration.

Though Alvin can go down only 2.8 miles, it has made thousands of dives and discoveries, and it is widely seen among submersible experts as highly productive and well-run.

One of the Chinese trainees was Ye Cong, now a pilot on Jiaolong during its sea trials. Last year's tests went as deep as about a half-mile and this summer's to a little more than 2.3 miles. Next year, Jiaolong is to dive to about 3.1 miles and in 2012 reach its maximum depth.

Walsh said the flag issue prompted more awkwardness than swagger among those building and testing the new submersible.

"We had a laugh about it," he recalled of his China visit. "I said, 'Oh, you're copying the Russians,' and they kind of giggled. These guys are pretty apolitical and pretty well-insulated" from Beijing. "They're just contractors doing their job."