{"id":74900,"date":"2025-10-24T10:45:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/24\/us-china-contest-potential-deep-sea-mineral-mining-cook-islands"},"modified":"2025-10-24T10:45:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:45:59","slug":"in-the-depths-of-the-ocean-a-new-contest-between-the-us-and-china-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74900","title":{"rendered":"In the depths of the ocean, a new contest between the US and China emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around the Cook Islands, the world\u2019s two most powerful countries are exploring the possibility of deep-sea mining for critical minerals<\/p>\n<p>Deep below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the seafloor is dotted with clusters of brown and black rocks, each containing valuable metals.<\/p>\n<p>The rocks, known as polymetallic nodules, hold reserves of critical minerals that could be used to power clean energy and fuel a new industrial future. In the Cook Islands, a nation halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, exploration vessels are mapping the mineral-rich seabeds.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/24\/us-china-contest-potential-deep-sea-mineral-mining-cook-islands\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around the Cook Islands, the world\u2019s two most powerful countries are exploring the possibility of deep-sea mining for critical mineralsDeep below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the seafloor is dotted with clusters of brown and black rocks, each cont&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4040,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,6,50,855,3426,3361,65,591,730,467,874,45,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-business","category-china","category-cook-islands","category-critical-minerals","category-deep-sea-mining","category-environment","category-kiribati","category-mining","category-oceans","category-pacific-islands","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74901,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900\/revisions\/74901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}