The South China Sea (SCS) has been the international deep-sea research highlight for nearly a decade. Most prominently, the major research program, “Deep Sea Processes and Evolution of the SCS (2011-2018)” supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, has made remarkable scientific breakthroughs with the efforts of Chinese scientists. These scientific achievements are closely related to the introduction of “three deep technologies” for deep-sea exploration, namely, deep-sea drilling ships, long-term seafloor observation systems, and submersible vehicles. Since the research activities up to now mainly focus on the northern part of the SCS, China can motivate new large-scale programs to cover the southern SCS basin, the efforts of which are expected to make the SCS a natural laboratory for the global ocean science.