TIMELINE

2012: The manned submersible Jiaolong sets a national diving record of 7,062 meters in the Marianas Trench on June 27. The feat cements China's position as one of the world's leaders in deep-sea exploration.

2013: The Chang'e-3 lunar probe successfully performs a soft landing on the moon on Dec 14 and deployed China's first lunar rover, Yutu. It is the first time that a Chinese rover has landed on an extraterrestrial object.

2014: Agronomist Yuan Longping and his team set an international record of yielding over 15 metric tons of rice per hectare on Sept 24. It is the first time Yuan's hybrid rice has reached this milestone.

2015: China launches the first completed prototype of the homemade C919 passenger jet on Nov 2. The aircraft makes its maiden flight in 2017.

2016: The five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, the world's largest single-dish radio telescope is completed on Sept 25. It becomes fully operational in 2020.

2017: On Aug 30, China launches the Beijing-Shanghai Backbone Network, the world's first long-distance quantum communication highway. With a length of more than 2,000 kilometers, it connects the cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

2018: In January, the journal Cell announces that Chinese scientists have created the world's first macaques using somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same technique that yielded the famous clone Dolly the Sheep.

2019: On Jan 3, the Chang'e-4 lunar probe, carrying the Yutu 2 rover, makes the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon.

2020: On June 23, China launches the last satellite for the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, marking the completion of the deployment of the nation's global navigation system.

2021: On Sept 24, the journal Science reports that Chinese scientists have synthesized starch from carbon dioxide for the first time, a breakthrough that may revolutionize agriculture if the technology becomes economically viable.