China's Submersible Dives to 7,000 Meters

Chinese manned submersible 'Jiaolong' succeeds in reaching 7,020 meters in its fourth dive into the Mariana Trench

'Jiaolong's fourth successful dive below 7,000 meters, proved that the submersible was stable in function and the performance of the team improved gradually, said the program's on-scene commander Liu Feng.

"Breaking the 7,000-meter mark means China has obtained the capability of exploring 99.8 percent of the deep ocean with manned submersibles," Liu said. "This is a technological breakthrough."

Among about 90 operational manned submersibles thoughout the world, only 12 can descend to 1,000 meters undersea and even fewer can dive deeper. Before China's attempts, only manned submersibles of the United States, Japan, France and Russia have dived below 6,000 meters.

China started the development of Jiaolong in 2002 and its first 1,000-meter dive test was conducted in 2009. All the designs and core technologies were developed by Chinese scientists, said Xu Qinan, chief designer of Jiaolong.