At least one Mark 48 torpedo was reportedly recovered by Chinese fishermen in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and the government of China might have begun reverse engineering in the 1980s.
[1] Dong Chunpeng (董春鹏), a University of Science & Technology of China graduate in 1966 who worked for 705th Institute since then, was the chief designer in the 1995 project.
In the latter half of February 2007, for his efforts in the development of Yu-6, Dong Chunpeng (董春鹏) was awarded the 2006 State Science and Technology Prizes in Beijing.
A team of three scientists, Ms. Su Li (苏丽), Mao Yuanfu (毛元福), and Wang Lisong (王立松) of Harbin Electro Carbon Research Institute[4] (哈尔滨电碳研究所), was tasked to develop the graphite material used to make engine valves and other components.
Wang Guozhi (王国治) was in charge of noise reduction, and his successful research in this field won him second place in the Chinese national scientific and technology advancement award in 1998.
[8][9] The new warhead utilizes sodium hydride compounds / chemical reaction; on detonation a large amount of sodium powder is released, which reacts with seawater to produce large amounts of very-high-temperature hydrogen within a very short period of time, so that the temperature instantly increases to over 2,000 °C within a radius of a few dozen metres as the hydrogen reacts with oxygen, destroying the target even if not hit.