China is the world's largest trading nation, with nearly a quarter of global trade volume concentrated here, meaning trillions of dollars worth of goods enter and exit the country annually. Among these, 90% of China's foreign trade goods are transported by sea, and China's ports play a crucial role as bridges and links.
　　Currently, China has over 1,400 ports, but only a few, such as Hong Kong Port, Qingdao Port, Qinhuangdao Port, and Ningbo Port, are natural deep-water ports. To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "To get rich, first build roads; in coastal areas, to get rich, also first build ports, create a 'marine economy,' and make ports bigger and stronger." Faced with the bottleneck of limited water depth in most channels and insufficient berth grades, building deep-water ports has become a national strategy. Among these, using dredgers for dredging operations is the most effective way to clear channels and deepen berths.
　　As the world's largest dredging company, CCCC Dredging's history of using mechanical dredging to dredge rivers and build seaports can be traced back to the Haihe Engineering Bureau established in 1897, with a history of 120 years. The world's highest-grade artificial deep-water port—Tianjin Port, built by Tianjin Dredging Bureau—now faces Rotterdam Port in the Netherlands across the new Eurasian Continental Bridge and has become one of the busiest super ports in the world.
　　However, 65 years ago in 1952, when New China's first new port—Tianjin Tanggu New Port—opened, the 10,000-ton ship "Changchun" entered Tianjin Port on the tide for the first time. Further back, 125 years ago in 1892, Tianjin Port was just a small river port on the Haihe River. Due to long-term severe siltation, even 1,000-ton ships with a draft of about 2 meters could hardly pass through.
　　Tianjin Port's extraordinary transformation from a small estuary port to a top-ten international port in the world spans three centuries. Behind this is the Tianjin Dredging Bureau's century-long hard work. As a muddy seaport, Tianjin Port has severe siltation. From the Haihe River cut-off and straightening to the main channel construction, from the first phase of the 100,000-ton channel project to the 200,000-ton, 250,000-ton, and then 300,000-ton compound channel construction, it took 120 years to build Tianjin Port into today's super port.
　　During this period, with the implementation of the national "Five-Year Plan" and Premier Zhou Enlai's important instruction to "change the port's appearance in three years," a large number of ports, including Tianjin Port and China's coastal Dalian Port, Qinhuangdao Port, Qingdao Port, Yingkou Port, and Shanghai Port, gradually began construction. During this period, "Rather let sweat float the ship than delay the project by a day" became a loud slogan for building achievements in China's coastal areas. The dredger fleets of the three dredging bureaus under CCCC Dredging worked day and night to dredge seabed sediment. By the end of 1975, 40 deep-water berths of 10,000-ton class or above had been built nationwide.
　　After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, to meet the requirements of large-scale ports and deep-water channels, China spent huge sums over nearly 20 years to introduce more than 100 dredgers of various types. These included the "Jinhang Jun 215," then Asia's largest and most advanced cutter suction dredger, introduced from Japan in 1985, and the "Tongli," the first self-propelled trailing suction hopper dredger with a bow blowing device and both dredging-discharging and dredging-blowing functions, introduced from the Netherlands in 1994. These vessels became the core force in China's port and channel construction at the time. By the end of 2001, seven ports, including Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, Qingdao, and Dalian, had annual cargo throughput exceeding 100 million tons. Before that, only Shanghai Port and Guangzhou Port had annual throughput exceeding 100 million tons.
　　In 2001, after China joined the WTO, a new wave of construction swept through domestic coastal ports. As channels were continuously widened and deepened, seabed geological conditions became more complex, and sediment transport distances became longer, placing higher demands on dredging equipment and also spawning a golden development period for China's dredging industry. During this period, Tianjin Dredging Bureau, relying on over a century of ship management and operation experience, explored and promoted the localization of dredging equipment, invested huge manpower and resources, and successfully built a large number of dredging equipment such as the "Tianjing," "Tongtu," and "Tiankun," breaking the long-term reliance on imported foreign dredging equipment and technology in China's dredging industry and strongly supporting China's port and channel infrastructure construction.
　　From 2002 to 2016, the number of ports with throughput exceeding 100 million tons in mainland China increased from 7 to 28, and 7 ports had throughput exceeding 500 million tons. In particular, in the new round of port construction in Rizhao Port, Xiamen Port, and Fangchenggang Port, seabed rocks severely affected channel construction. However, with the powerful rock-digging function of the "Tianjing," then Asia's first and world-leading large cutter suction dredger, the project proceeded on schedule. A number of deep-water ports, including Shanghai Yangshan Deep-Water Port, Qingdao Dongjiakou Port's 400,000-ton ore terminal, Ningbo Zhoushan Port's 450,000-ton crude oil terminal, and Guangzhou Port Nansha Container Phase III, were completed and put into use, all demonstrating the huge supporting role of CCCC Dredging's large equipment in national key projects.
　　The most eye-catching was the Tianjin Port 300,000-ton channel project, which started construction in 2011. During the 514-day construction period, Tianjin Dredging Bureau deployed multiple large trailing suction hopper dredgers, including the "Tongtu," "Tongcheng," "Tongxu," and "Tongli," and dredged over 31 million cubic meters of sediment, presenting a generous gift for the 60th anniversary of Tianjin Port's opening. A world-class artificial deep-water port with a main channel 47 kilometers long, 21 meters deep, and 780 meters wide has risen on the coast of the Bohai Sea.
　　At the end of 2014, the Tianjin Port compound channel was officially opened. This channel transformed the original "two-lane" into a "four-lane," allowing 300,000-ton ships and the world's largest container ships of 19,000 TEU to freely enter and exit Tianjin Port, as well as two-way passage for large and small ships. That year, nearly 38,000 production vessels entered and exited Tianjin Port, including nearly 900 vessels of 150,000 to 300,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 25%, and cumulatively reduced berth idle time by more than 3,000 hours.
　　Today, Tianjin Port has become the largest comprehensive port in northern China, with three Eurasian Continental Bridge transit routes, a "one-stop" shipping service center, and an electronic port. It has established 23 inland dry ports in the interior, covering 52% of the country's total area, and its container routes comprehensively cover major regions and ports worldwide.
　　As the world's busiest port, Shanghai Yangshan Port handles nearly 45,000 containers daily. In 2015, the total material exchanged between China and the world through this port chain reached 3.6 billion tons, enough to fill 36,000 aircraft-carrier-sized cargo ships. Although China is striving to change its energy structure and coal usage is declining year by year, the conveyor belts at Qinhuangdao Port, the world's largest coal port, still handle at least 600,000 tons of coal per day. At Qingdao Dongjiakou Port, which has one of the few land-based terminals in the world capable of fully loading 400,000-ton-class cargo ships, 70% of the 400,000-ton iron ore ships entering China in 2016 docked here. These world-class ports were all ultimately built by the three major dredging bureaus under CCCC Dredging after decades of continuous dredging.
　　Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the scale and specialization of China's ports have significantly accelerated, and throughput capacity has markedly improved, providing strong support for national economic development. According to statistics, by the end of 2016, among the top ten ports in the world by cargo throughput and container throughput, China had 7. There were 2,317 berths of 10,000-ton class or above, 1.3 times that of five years ago; ports above designated size completed cargo throughput of 11.8 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%, and container throughput of 220 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%.
　　Today, overlooking China's 18,000-kilometer coastline, from north to south, cities are built around ports, and ports prosper with cities. Three major urban agglomerations have formed: the Bohai Rim urban agglomeration centered on Tianjin Port, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration centered on Shanghai Port, and the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration centered on Hong Kong and Shenzhen Ports. The GDP of these three urban agglomerations accounts for over 60% of the national total, and the nearly 90 large seaports distributed among them play a pivotal role. The busy port chain has become a bridge between China and the world, and through these super ports, China is accelerating its connectivity and interaction with the world.