BEIJING – China’s underwater glider successfully ended its mission to theIndian Ocean and South China Sea and a Chinese expert said other countriesshould rationally view China’s deep sea explorations.
China’s independently-developed underwater glider, Haiyi, which means “seawings” in Chinese, has successfully completed a scientific observation inthe Indian Ocean, marking the first time that the country’s indigenousunderwater glider was used in this ocean, according to Global Times here onFriday.
The mission, between December 11, 2017 and January 2, 2018, was meant toobserve the interaction between global climate change and marineconditions, Yu Jiancheng, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy ofSciences’ (CAS) Shenyang Institute of Automation, the glider’s developer,said.
The underwater glider was used to monitor the deep-sea environment in vastareas, Yu said. After diving into the Indian Ocean on December 11, 2017,Haiyi obtained 190 pieces of data on its 705-kilometer journey, Yu added.
Before its Indian Ocean mission, the glider also accomplished a three-monthmission in the South China Sea in October 2017, when it reached a recorddistance of over 1,880 kilometers while collecting data for scientificresearch.
The deep water landscape and water conditions in the South China Sea andIndian Ocean differ considerably, and the missions in different region willalso help China contribute more to international scientific research, ChenXiangmiao, a research fellow at the National Institute for the South ChinaSea, told the Global Times.
“Such explorations are open and transparent as they are for scientificpurposes and not for military use. They should not be politicized or hypedby India and countries surrounding the South China Sea,” Chen said.