In June 2012, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) presented, in a feature from its May/June 2012 magazine issue, the state of seawater desalination in China. Figures from the China Desalination Association counted 73 seawater desalination plants in the country at the end of 2011, together producing 643,000 m³/day, while further plants totalling more than 340,000 m³/day were being built. The feature pointed to over five decades of research and development and covered two finished projects, Caofeidian and Tianjin Dagang.
The feature showed that China had several hundred thousand m³/day of seawater desalination capacity by the end of 2011, with plants under construction adding more than half of that base.