In late 2023, a cutting-edge Chinese research vessel circumnavigated Taiwan in a rare move that went largely unreported. The Zhu Hai Yun (珠海云), which bristles with advanced monitoring and surveillance equipment, charted a course that appears intended to challenge Taiwan and probe the environment around the island. 

Chinese sources insist the ship is meant solely for civilian research. However, satellite imagery and other open-source information show that the lines separating the Zhu Hai Yun and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are exceedingly blurred. 

The Zhu Hai Yun is just one of dozens of Chinese research vessels that scour the world’s oceans collecting data on the marine environment. That data is critical to civilian scientific and commercial research but can also support military intelligence.  

Yet the capabilities of the Zhu Hai Yun stand out even among the most advanced ships in China’s research fleet. It is designed to serve as a “mothership” for over 50 unmanned air, surface, and undersea vehicles that can be deployed from its deck while underway.  

With the Zhu Hai Yun as the hub, these smaller platforms can simultaneously survey a three-dimensional area spanning 160 kilometers across, 4,000 meters above, and 1,500 meters below the ocean’s surface.

According to Yunzhou Tech, a major unmanned surface vehicle (USV) manufacturer that helped design the Zhu Hai Yun, such autonomous systems can operate together in an “unmanned ship swarm” (无人船艇集群), acting as a force multiplier for survey operations.   

While these technologies can support civilian scientific research, they also have dual-use applications. The USVs and undersea gliders carried on board the Zhu Hai Yun are equipped with advanced instrumentation such as side-scan sonar, which Chinese naval researchers have identified as useful for detecting undersea targets like mines and submarines. Other systems, like aerial drones, can be used to surveil or monitor target areas from the skies.      

The vessel also offers a platform for China to live test networked drone swarm operations, an emerging focus area for military planners in both China and the United States. These tactics, which involve overwhelming enemy defenses with waves of low-cost unmanned vehicles, have already reshaped modern warfare in Ukraine. They are also likely to play a major role in a potential conflict over Taiwan.  

China boasts the world's largest fleet of civilian research vessels. While they serve scientific and commercial purposes, they also further Beijing's strategic goals. Read the full Hidden Reach report to learn more.

Setting it further apart, the vessel’s navigation and control systems are reportedly supported by advanced artificial intelligence software, enabling it to operate autonomously for extended periods without human intervention.

Autonomous navigation for large surface vessels remains a nascent technology, and few ships of the Zhu Hai Yun’s size and range can operate without human guidance. Within the U.S. Navy, the new Expeditionary Fast Transport vessel (EPF 13) is the largest vessel to boast autonomous capabilities. At 103 meters, it is only 14 meters longer than the Zhu Hai Yun.

These close physical ties are indicative of the blurred lines between civilian and military shipbuilding in China.

Records indicate that the Zhu Hai Yun was built by the 704th Research Institute, a subsidiary of the massive state-owned defense contractor China State Shipbuilding Corporation. In 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department placed the 704th Research Institute on its Entity List for illegally acquiring U.S.-origin equipment to support the PLA. 

The Zhu Hai Yun’s military connections extend beyond the shipyard. Its primary operator is the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), a lab owned by the Zhuhai municipal government and run by Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU).  

SYSU is closely linked to the PLA. In 2015, the U.S. government blacklisted an entity within SYSU over its role in hosting the National University of Defense Technology’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which supports China’s nuclear weapons program. The SYSU Southern Marine Lab openly promotes both the Zhu Hai Yun and the Tianhe-2 supercomputer as key platforms for its work. 

China’s own government has hinted at the vessel’s ties with the defense sector. The powerful State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) lists updates about the Zhu Hai Yun under the “military science and technology” (军工科技) section of its website.