The submersible called “Fendouzhe” or “Nerd” landed on the seabed at the bottom of the deepest oceanic trench on earth Tuesday morning, Xinhua said after it took off from Hainan Province in China a month earlier.

The dive beat China’s previous dive in the Mariana Trench by over 800 meters (2,624 feet), but it narrowly missed the world record for the deepest dive in the Mariana Trench.

It is believed that the current world record was set by the American underwater explorer Victor Vescovo, who claimed to have achieved a depth of 10,927 meters (35,853 feet) in May 2019.

But China’s destinations for diving aren’t just scientific research. Ye Cong, the submersible’s chief designer, told Chinese state media that the seabed is rich in resources.

High-tech diving equipment can help us better draw a “treasure map” of the deep sea, Ye said in an interview quoted by Xinhua.

In an undated photo, the manned submersible Fendouzhe is filmed when it is launched into the sea.

In a comment on the dive posted on the official WeChat account of the overseas edition of People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, the author said deep-sea exploration is important to the “international strategic landscape” to understand better.

“For example, Japan recently discovered rare earths in the Pacific Ocean, where the recoverable reserves are said to be 1,000 times greater than on land. The ocean floor is a whole new world to explore, “the comment reads.

Rare earths, which are essential for the manufacture of high-tech products such as smartphones, missile systems, and radar, are currently being used in much of China.Beijing is working hard to maintain its supremacy in this area. In July, the Chinese government increased its quota for mining rare earths a record high, up to 140,000 tons (140 million kilograms). Chinese companies are investing in businesses, according to the state newspaper China Daily Rare earth company in Greenland, as economic opportunities arise in the Arctic region.

But it faces stiff competition from countries around the world.

In 2018, Japanese researchers made on their small island Minamitori in the Pacific Ocean, where millions of tons extremely valuable rare earths were discovered in the nearby deep sea mud. That same year, Reuters reported that India was ready to spend more than $ 1 billion over a decade to find vast areas of the ocean floor after any Signs for rare earths or minerals that could possibly be extracted. The International Seabed Authority should agree on a mining code in mid-2020, with China just one of many nations lining up explore and dismantle the seabed, but from October was there no final agreement.

Additional coverage from CNN’s Beijing office.