China is one of the biggest players in the race to mine the deep sea — and a joint Mongabay-CNN investigation shows that over the past five years, eight Chinese research vessels have been busy exploring for minerals in zones designated to Chinese companies.
These eight ships spent more than 800 days inside these deep-sea mining areas, traveling a distance more than twice the circumference of the Earth. But when we looked closer, we noticed something interesting. These vessels weren’t actually spending much of their sea time in these deep-sea mining areas. Instead, the ships were also operating in strategically important parts of the ocean — places where future military tensions with the United States might unfold.
This raised an important question — are these ships just exploring for minerals? Or are they also gathering intelligence, such as scouting out the locations of U.S. submarines or undersea cables? Our findings suggest they are doing both. This raises important geopolitical concerns. And it matters for the environment : These ships use powerful echosounders that can harm whales and octopuses like Casper. And if deep-sea mining begins, it could cause irreversible damage to the marine environment.
You can read the full investigation: https://news.mongabay.com/custom-story/2026/03/chinas-deep-sea-mining-fleet-may-also-track-us-submarines/
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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