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China is conducting a immense undersea mapping and monitoring cognition crossed the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans, gathering elaborate cognition of marine conditions that naval experts accidental would beryllium important for waging submarine warfare against the United States and its allies.
In 1 example, the Dong Fang Hong 3, a probe vas operated by Ocean University of China, spent 2024 and 2025 sailing backmost and distant successful the seas adjacent Taiwan and the U.S. stronghold of Guam, and astir strategical stretches of the Indian Ocean, ship-tracking information reviewed by Reuters shows. In October 2024, it checked connected a acceptable of almighty Chinese water sensors susceptible of identifying undersea objects adjacent Japan, according to Ocean University, and visited the aforesaid country again past May. And successful March 2025, it criss-crossed the waters betwixt Sri Lanka and Indonesia, covering approaches to the Malacca Strait, a captious chokepoint for maritime commerce.
According to the university, the vessel was carrying retired mud surveys and clime research. But a technological insubstantial co-written by Ocean University academics shows it has besides conducted extended deep-sea mapping. Naval-warfare experts and U.S. Navy officials accidental the benignant of deep-sea information being collected by the Dong Fang Hong 3 – via mapping and placement of sensors successful the water – is giving China a representation of the subsea conditions it would request to deploy its submarines much efficaciously and hunt down those of its adversaries.
The Dong Fang Hong 3 isn’t operating alone. It is portion of a broader water mapping and monitoring cognition involving dozens of probe vessels and hundreds of sensors. In tracing this effort, Reuters examined Chinese authorities and assemblage records, including diary articles and technological studies, and analysed much than 5 years of question by 42 probe vessels progressive successful the Pacific, Indian oregon Arctic oceans utilizing a ship-tracking level built by New Zealand institution Starboard Maritime Intelligence.
While the probe has civilian purposes – immoderate of the surveying covers sportfishing grounds oregon areas wherever China has mineral prospecting contracts – it besides serves a subject one, according to 9 naval-warfare experts who reviewed Reuters’ findings.
To stitchery accusation astir underwater terrain, probe vessels representation the oversea level portion traveling backmost and distant successful choky lines. The tracking information shows that benignant of question by the vessels Reuters tracked crossed ample sections of the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.
At slightest 8 of the vessels Reuters tracked person conducted seabed mapping, portion different 10 person carried instrumentality utilized for mapping, according to a reappraisal of Chinese authorities media articles, vas descriptions published by Chinese universities, and property releases by authorities organisations.
The vessels’ survey information “would beryllium perchance invaluable successful mentation of the battlespace” for Chinese submarines, said Peter Scott, a erstwhile main of Australia’s submarine force. “Any subject submariner worthy his brackish volition enactment a large woody of effort into knowing the situation he’s operating in.”
The ship-tracking information amusement that China’s seabed-surveying effort is focused successful portion connected militarily important waters astir the Philippines, adjacent Guam and Hawaii, and adjacent U.S. subject facilities connected Wake atoll successful the northbound Pacific. “The standard of what they’re doing is astir much than conscionable resources,” said Jennifer Parker, an adjunct prof of defence and information astatine the University of Western Australia and erstwhile Australian anti-submarine warfare officer. “If you look astatine the sheer grade of it, it’s precise wide that they mean to person an expeditionary blue-water naval capableness that besides is built astir submarine operations.”
Moreover, Parker and different experts added, adjacent wherever information is gathered for technological purposes, the integration of civilian technological probe and subject exertion improvement has go a cardinal absorption of the Chinese authorities nether President Xi Jinping. Beijing refers to this attack arsenic “civil-military fusion.”
China’s ministries of defense, overseas affairs and earthy resources didn’t respond to requests for remark astir the seabed mapping and ocean-monitoring activities. The U.S. Defense Department didn’t respond to questions from Reuters.
In grounds to a legislature committee this month, Rear Admiral Mike Brookes, the commandant of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, said China had dramatically expanded its surveying efforts, providing information that “enables submarine navigation, concealment, and positioning of seabed sensors oregon weapons.” He added that “potential subject quality collection” by Chinese probe vessels “represents a strategical concern.”
America precocious overhauled its ain efforts to representation and show the ocean, but it typically does truthful with subject vessels that are allowed to crook disconnected the tracking strategy monitored by civilian software. China’s civilian survey ships besides sometimes disable tracking, meaning its run whitethorn spell further than Reuters could determine.
This is the archetypal clip the grade of China’s mapping and monitoring crossed the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans has been reported. Previous reporting has revealed a information of the effort astir Guam and Taiwan, and successful parts of the Indian Ocean. “It is frankly astonishing to spot the tremendous standard of Chinese marine technological research,” said Ryan Martinson, an subordinate prof specializing successful Chinese maritime strategy astatine the U.S. Naval War College.
“For decades, the U.S. Navy could presume an asymmetric vantage successful its cognition of the water battlespace,” added Mr. Martinson. China’s efforts “threaten to erode that advantage. It is evidently profoundly concerning.”
Paranoid astir being boxed in
The information that Chinese probe vessels are collecting astir the seabed and h2o conditions is captious to submarine operations and anti-submarine warfare, according to naval experts. Most obviously, said Australian defence student Parker, commanders request accusation astir underwater terrain to debar collisions and fell their vessels. But that information is besides indispensable for detecting submarines, which run within a fewer 100 meters of the surface.
Typically, submarines are identified done the sounds they emit oregon echoes from signals sent by sonar systems. Tom Shugart, a erstwhile U.S. submarine commandant who is present an adjunct elder chap astatine the Center for a New American Security, said the question of those dependable waves changes depending connected the underwater landscape.
Sound waves and submarine movements are besides affected by h2o temperature, salinity and currents. The vessels progressive beryllium to Chinese authorities entities similar the Ministry of Natural Resources oregon state-affiliated probe institutions similar Ocean University, whose president successful 2021 publically celebrated its “close ties” to China’s navy and committedness to “the operation of a maritime powerfulness and nationalist defense.” The assemblage didn’t respond to a petition for comment.
China has done its astir broad water surveying eastbound of the Philippines, which sits on the First Island Chain, the drawstring of territories largely controlled by America’s allies that runs from the Japanese islands successful the northbound done Taiwan and connected to Borneo successful the south. The concatenation forms a earthy obstruction betwixt China’s coastal seas and the Pacific. “They’re paranoid astir being boxed successful to the First Island Chain,” said Peter Leavy, formerly Australia’s naval attache to the U.S. and present president of the Australian Naval Institute.
China’s mapping “indicates a tendency to recognize the maritime domain truthful they tin interruption out.” The tracking information shows that China’s mapping besides covers waters surrounding Guam – wherever immoderate American atomic submarines are stationed.
Strikingly, Chinese vessels person besides mapped waters astir Hawaii, 1 of America’s different determination subject hubs; examined an underwater ridge northbound of a naval basal successful Papua New Guinea to which the U.S. precocious gained access; and scouted astir Christmas Island, an Australian territory connected a way betwixt the South China Sea and a captious Australian submarine base.
China’s efforts widen further. It has mapped ample swaths of the Indian Ocean, a captious way for Chinese imports of lipid and different resources from the West Asia and Africa. “China has immoderate cardinal vulnerabilities erstwhile it comes to dependencies connected maritime trade,” said Mr. Parker, the erstwhile anti-submarine warfare officer. The surveying “indicates that they volition apt beryllium conducting much submarine operations successful the Indian Ocean.”
China’s vessels person besides mapped the seabed westbound and northbound of Alaska, an indispensable oversea way into the Arctic. Beijing has identified the Arctic arsenic a strategical frontier and declared its ambition to go a polar large powerfulness by the 2030s. The extended surveying and Beijing’s increasing undersea capableness are “symptomatic of China’s emergence arsenic a premier maritime power,” said Mr. Shugart, the erstwhile submarine commander.
A transparent ocean
Around 2014, Wu Lixin, a idiosyncratic astatine Ocean University, projected an ambitious effort to make a “transparent ocean” by deploying sensors that would springiness China a broad presumption of h2o conditions and question done circumstantial areas, according to a connection published by the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences. The connection rapidly received astatine slightest $85 cardinal successful enactment from the Shandong provincial government, according to comments by Shandong officials.
The task began successful the South China Sea, wherever Ocean University nationalist statements boast it has present built an reflection strategy covering the deep-sea basin. Mr. Brookes, the manager of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, told the legislature committee that China is gathering undersea surveillance networks that “gather hydrographic information – h2o temperature, salinity, currents – to optimise sonar show and alteration persistent surveillance of submarines transiting captious waterways similar the South China Sea.”
After surveying the South China Sea, Chinese scientists expanded the transparent water task to the Pacific and Indian oceans. In the Pacific, records from the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources, Ocean University and the Shandong authorities amusement that China has deployed hundreds of sensors, buoys and subsea arrays to observe changes successful h2o conditions similar temperature, salinity and subsea question done the water eastbound of Japan, eastbound of the Philippines, and astir Guam.
In the Indian Ocean, documents from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Natural Resources picture a sensor array ringing India and Sri Lanka, including on an underwater upland scope known arsenic Ninety East Ridge. The ridge – which Chinese vessels person besides combed, according to the Starboard information – is 1 of the world’s longest undersea upland ranges and sits astride the attack to the strategically indispensable Malacca Strait, done which overmuch of China’s lipid proviso passes.
Ocean University and the Institute of Oceanology, which is portion of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, person said the wider web of sensors present provides China with real-time information astir h2o conditions and subsea movements. Some naval-warfare experts expressed caution astir that claim, fixed method challenges with real-time connection of information from underwater. But adjacent delayed information is valuable, Mr. Parker said, arsenic it could assistance China observe U.S. submarine operations.
Many sensors are placed successful delicate locations. For example, Reuters precocious reported connected a U.S. effort to fortify a cardinal strait betwixt Taiwan and the Philippines to chopped disconnected Chinese entree to the Pacific. Ocean University studies amusement that China has deployed precocious sensors successful parts of the strait done which U.S. submarines would determination to scope the South China Sea. Chinese scientists accidental these sensors show changes successful clime and water conditions. But successful 2017, authorities officials from Shandong state said the transparent water task was intended to “ensure maritime defence and security” and explicitly compared the task with a U.S. subject effort to physique an American ocean-sensor network.
Shandong’s government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Oceanology didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Mapping-program laminitis Wu present oversees the web done the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, whose partners see China’s Naval Submarine Academy, according to the academy’s website. Wu didn’t respond to Reuters questions.
New types of combat capabilities
Together, China’s mapping and monitoring springiness it blase tools to observe rival submarines and deploy its ain successful immoderate of the world’s astir contested waters. “This is simply a manifestation of China’s far-seas reach,” said Collin Koh, a elder chap successful maritime information astatine Singapore’s RSIS Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies. “They present person a reasonably bully representation of the maritime domain they anticipation to run in, either successful peacetime oregon successful war.” Chinese researchers, similarly, spot strategical worth successful their work. Zhou Chun, an Ocean University researcher who oversees the Indian and Pacific water sensor arrays, was quoted past twelvemonth successful an Ocean University property merchandise arsenic saying that his enactment had shown him “the accelerated improvement of my country’s maritime defence and subject capabilities.” He didn’t respond to Reuters questions.
Going forward, Mr. Zhou pledged to “transform the astir beforehand dscientific and technological achievements into caller types of combat capabilities for our subject astatine sea.”
