South China Sea: the gateway to China's deep-sea ambitions

For most parts of its history, China has largely turned its back on ocean exploration. Even after it started oceanographic research in the 1950s, the focus was mostly on coastal and offshore waters. But this changed a decade ago when the country began to invest heavily on deep-sea research-resulting in the launch in 2011 of its first multi-disciplinary deep-sea research programme called the South China Sea (SCS)-Deep to probe the mystery of this marginal sea. Covering an area of 3.5 million square kilometres and with a maximum depth of 5500 metres, SCS occupies a scientifically interesting position between the world's highest mountains, the Himalayas, and the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. In a forum organized by National Science Review at the Annual Conference of the South China Sea-Deep Programme held in January in Shanghai, a panel of scientists explained what China's deep-sea ambitions are, why SCS is a fantastic natural laboratory, the importance of international collaboration, what China needs to do to develop cutting-edge marine technologies and how SCS could be an ideal platform for regional cooperation.