Chinese submersible to dive in West Philippine Sea

BEIJING—A Chinese submersible that last month set a new national record will dive in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) next year, state media said Tuesday, as Beijing asserts its claim over the resource-rich area.

The mission is “part of the preparations for future commercial mining of the seabed,” China Daily quoted the China Ocean Mineral Resources and Research Association as saying.

China Daily said the “Jiaolong,” China’s most technologically advanced manned submersible, would conduct the mission next April and May. It reached depths of over 7,000 meters in the Pacific Ocean last month.

The craft gives China the ability to explore 99 percent of the world’s seabeds, China Daily said.

213 billion barrels

Its first mission in the area aims to study the “formation and evolution” of the West Philippine Sea bed, the daily reported.

Chinese researchers estimate that the strategic waterway holds more than 213 billion barrels of oil, equivalent to at least 80 percent of Saudi Arabia’s reserves.

Those deposits are an enticing prospect for China, the world’s largest energy consumer, which relies on imports to meet over half of its oil needs.

The West Philippine Sea, which extends from China’s south coast toward several Southeast Asian countries, is a flash point for territorial disputes among China and its neighbors.

China claims the entirety of the sea on historical grounds but Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines dispute this.

Tensions have risen recently, with China and the Philippines locked in a maritime dispute over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, a reef off the Philippine coast. AFP