Jiaolong‘s Sea Explorations (English Edition): China’s Journey to the Deepest Point of the Ocean

The Ocean's Deepest Secrets—And the Machine That Unlocked Them

Humanity has stood at the North and South Poles. We have summited Everest. But the deep sea—a realm of crushing pressure and absolute darkness—remained largely unexplored. Then came Jiaolong.

This is the definitive English-language account of China's manned submersible program: from its ambitious conception to the tense sea trials and the groundbreaking dives that placed China among the world's elite deep-sea nations. Author Xu Chen, a winner of the prestigious Lu Xun Literature Prize, was granted extraordinary access. For over 50 days, he lived alongside the scientists and crew aboard the mothership, conducting interviews over four years to assemble this panoramic, documentary-style narrative -11.

What you'll discover inside:

• The engineering challenges and political stakes behind building a submersible capable of reaching the ocean's most hostile depths

• Vivid, on-deck accounts of the dives—the fear, the focus, and the euphoria of touching the abyss

• The strategic significance of the oceans, and what China's deep-sea program means for science and global resource competition

• The human story: the engineers, pilots, and researchers who risked everything for a mission few believed was possible