Wan Buyan claimed that a strong nation must be self-sufficient in science and technology, and the Chinese people are fully capable of doing so.
Wan Buyan, a senior marine engineer from the Hunan University of Science and Technology and a delegate to the 14th National People’s Congress, claimed that a strong nation must be self-sufficient in science and technology, and the Chinese people are fully capable of doing so.
The Hainiu II deep-water drilling rig system was created by Wan’s team and operated in the South China Sea at a depth of more than 2,000 metres. In April 2021, it drilled 231 metres into the seabed, breaking the previous record for deep-water drilling.
During a news conference outside of the 14th NPC’s opening session in Beijing, he stated, “My team and I have upheld the belief for years that we should work hard in fields that are of major strategic importance to the nation. Wan has concentrated on building essential tools used in deep-sea resource exploration from scratch since 1999.
He added that the country no longer required the use of foreign equipment to explore resources buried beneath the seabed in China’s coastal regions. “I have personally witnessed how China’s deep-sea drilling technology went from nothing to now leading the world,” he said.
“The first is that core technologies cannot be purchased, and the second is that a nation’s prosperity requires relying on ourselves”, he said.
“The second thing is that the Chinese people have the will and wisdom to be successful and self-sufficient in science and technology,” he added.
The Chinese drilling rig Hainiu II, which stands for “manatee,” was created by Hunan University of Science and Technology (HNUST). This indicates that China, as a global leader in deep-sea drilling, has theoretically acquired the capacity to explore all maritime resources. Hainiu II uses a special method called pressure core sampling that allows the rig to retrieve core samples from the ocean floor while maintaining in-situ pressure.