Class in Session: Deep-Sea Mining Governance in the Pacific
By Yiwei Zhao
In August and September, 23 Cook Islanders sat in classrooms in Hangzhou and Changsha studying deep-sea mining—training that falls under a 2025 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China. As they learned how seabed minerals are found, assessed, and managed, the U.S. and New Zealand pledged $60 million to upgrade a port at Penrhyn Atoll in the Cook Islands. So now, the tiny archipelago has two syllabi on offer: one trains regulators, the other builds a port to support future mining operations.
In its outreach to the island country, China is offering something that the U.S. and Europe are not: proactive, sustained, alternative support for deep-sea mining (DSM) capacity. With international rules unsettled, whoever helps the islands build that capacity will gain the most influence.
Sea Change
The reason both powers are courting the Cook Islands lies on the seabed, some 16,400 feet below the surface, where a faster route to critical minerals awaits. Polymetallic nodules— potato-sized, metal-rich concretions that form over millions of years around a small core, such as a shark’s tooth—rest scattered across the abyssal plains. DSM targets these nodules, which sit loose on the seabed, ready for collection by robotic vehicles before they are lifted to surface vessels.
Land-based mines create a bottleneck, making it difficult to meet demand for nickel, cobalt, and manganese in battery, semiconductor, and defense applications. This collection method requires long lead times and concentrated supply in a few countries. Using DSM to collect nodules, alternatively, yields these metals in a single operation, without the land clearance or community displacement of terrestrial mining.
The Pacific Ocean is the epicenter of this shift because it contains the world’s largest known nodule fields, alongside sovereign states driven by extraordinary economic incentives. Some projections estimate global deep-sea mining revenue to reach $25 billion by 2035, which would offer transformative capital to Pacific economies. Despite profound ecological unknowns, resource-rich regional nations are actively pursuing development to capture these windfalls.
The nation of the Cook Islands has become a key governance battlefield due to its vast resource reserves, proactive legal framework, and window of opportunity for regulatory influence. Controlling 7.4 billion tons of nodules across 770,000 square miles of ocean, the country could potentially see royalty revenues of up to $250 million annually, representing 86 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). The country has issued three exploration licenses while deferring final mining decisions to at least 2032, creating a critical opening to train local regulators and establish default technical standards. These processes will determine who is licensed, how revenue is shared, how environmental damage is measured and priced, and whose technical specifications become the default.
China: Capacity as Currency
That opportunity window is where China is positioning itself. Beijing treats expertise as currency: a regulator trained in China returns with Chinese methods and contacts, fostering long-term strategic alignment even without direct mining rights. The Cook Islands’ five-year MoU with China covers seabed minerals training, technology transfer, logistics support, and deep-sea ecosystems research. With cooperation agreements across all 10 of its Pacific diplomatic partners, China’s influence reaches both national regulators and international rule-makers.
China holds a distinct positional advantage in DSM, rooted in a quarter-century of consistent activity, comprehensive legislation, and institutionalized training. In 2001, its state-backed contractor, the China Ocean Mineral Resources R&D Association (COMRA), signed China’s first exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority (ISA)—the United Nations–mandated body governing international seabed mineral extraction. By 2017, China became the first country to sponsor contracts across all three ISA-regulated resource types: polymetallic nodules, polymetallic sulfides, and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts. With the addition of the China Minmetals contract, China became the first nation to sponsor four separate exploration licenses, encompassing more than 62,500 square miles of seabed while codifying these efforts under a national seabed law.
COMRA’s ISA-approved filings fully subsidize technical training for developing-world personnel, treating expertise as strategic currency. Today, Beijing holds five of the 31 ISA exploration contracts, which is more than any other nation, making it the agency’s largest financial contributor. Interestingly, the most visible European contractor, Belgium, sponsors just one contract. China’s contractors are state-owned, allowing them to operate in lockstep with government efforts. Meanwhile, Western governments rely on a patchwork of private firms, resulting in a more fragmented, inefficient approach.
For China’s energy strategy, the payoff is insurance. It already leads in battery supply chains, and nodule access would extend that lead from processing to raw materials and hedge against cobalt and nickel shocks.
The Counteroffer
Washington has chosen speed over rules. It issues commercial permits outside the ISA framework to firms such as the American Ocean Minerals Corporation (AOMC). Its approach to regional governments centers on hardware: $50 million for the Penrhyn port, plus $10 million from New Zealand. Yet its hardware-centric aid, such as port infrastructure, builds logistical capacity without cultivating regulatory oversight.
Europe has principles, but limited presence. The EU has, thus far, taken a cautious approach to seabed mining, yet runs no branded initiative on it in the Pacific. Its money is scattered: $3.65 million over seven years for a sustainable fisheries partnership with the Cook Islands, as well as €300 million regionally under Global Gateway. Little of its funding is tied to seabed governance.
Belgium, in particular, demonstrates how European caution has limited its influence. Brussels sponsors the ISA contract of Belgium-based deep-sea exploration firm GSR. However, the contract stipulates that GSR must obtain sufficient scientific data before beginning extraction. Yet in late 2025, GSR announced a review of its seabed interests, including plans to sell its stake in a Cook Islands joint venture and refocus on the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the central Pacific. Brussels asks for more science, while its sponsored firm leaves the place where that science is being gathered. A precautionary position carries little weight in Rarotonga, without a European partner helping build the capacity to enforce it.
Islands in the Middle
Regional disputes over the viability and desirability of deep-sea mining severely restrain the negotiating leverage of Pacific nations. The region splits into three camps. The first includes Fiji, Palau, Samoa, and Vanuatu, which back a moratorium on mining, while Vanuatu rejects mining at any point. Palau launched a moratorium alliance in 2022, and New Caledonia banned DSM across its exclusive economic zone for 50 years in 2025. These states point to the unknown ecological damage and the risk to ocean-dependent livelihoods and culture and weigh that risk above uncertain revenue. By contrast, Nauru, Tonga, Kiribati, and the Cook Islands are increasing their investments, and Kiribati is exploring a deal with China. The third group includes Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa, all of which fall under U.S. jurisdiction and have united against federal plans to lease their waters. While the Pacific Island Forum’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, released in 2022, provided the region with a shared language on climate, ocean protection, and regionalism, 2025 discussions on DSM reached no joint position. Without a clear regional consensus, each state will be left to negotiate alone against actors with far more resources, information, and legal capacity.
The Cook Islands is a test of whether increased capacity can strengthen a state’s hand against larger powers. So far, it has gained room to maneuver, deferring mining decisions to at least 2032 and accepting support from both Beijing and Washington without depending on either. Its Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) is a domestic framework built to balance security, economic feasibility, and environmental sustainability. Though the Cook Islands’ success hinges on ongoing scientific and legal oversight, this framework functions as a strong stride toward a more unified regional DSM strategy.
Closing the Gap
Competition in the Pacific turns on whomever helps islands govern, not who mines first. Washington and Brussels do not need to invent new programs to compete. Rather, each can point existing aid, fisheries, and climate channels toward regulatory and scientific training; support minimum standards written by Pacific states; push for fair revenue sharing in contracts; and keep their commitments running for years instead of news cycles.
The Pacific will shape the future of global deep-sea mining as critical minerals become central to supply chains and strategic security. Whether the sector becomes a viable source of economic growth will depend on international rules and environmental and commercial testing. China is already building influence among Pacific regulators and international rule-makers. The United States and Europe have three reasons to keep pace: a say in the standards that will govern metals they need, access to sources whose practices they can trust, and credibility as rule-setters while Washington bypasses the ISA.