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It's been claimed a video by a US submariner that the Soviet submarine K-10 collided with an unknown submarine in 1983 and this likely was a Chinese one ... because two years later the Chinese press supposedly published an obituary admitting to the loss of the sub, or at least the loss of a crew.

Furthermore, there's a web page that claims that in 1985 China lost nothing short of a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) of the Xia class.

It was reported that a second unit was constructed but lost with all hands in an accident in 1985, but Chinese secrecy remains at Cold War levels.

Wikipedia doesn't list any Chinese sub accidents until after the year 2000 (and also says that only one Xia was ever built.)

So, is there any other confirmation/evidence that China lost a sub (likely with all hands on board) during 1983-1985?

Nate Eldredge
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Fizz
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    [See footnote 13](https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0162288041588304) – bishop Sep 23 '21 at 04:26
  • @bishop: that says the putative Xia was "lost in a fire before it went to sea", so the one allegedly lost in a collision would have been something else. – Fizz Sep 23 '21 at 06:08
  • @bishop OTOH it also says "There is more clarity concerning an accident in the 1980s, which killed ten" which seems to be only known incident in the 1980s. That's a bit short of a crew, unless it was a midget sub. And despite the wording, there's no details about the incident in the footnote itself. The source cited therein is a bit hard to find. – Fizz Sep 23 '21 at 06:49
  • "The source cited therein is a bit hard to find." Hence my comment. It's only a clue. :) – bishop Sep 23 '21 at 14:51

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