Honk Kong's PhoenixTV and Gavin Menzies, former submarine commander of British Royal Navy, jointly announced on Tuesday in London to produce a television documentary "American Discovery: Did Chinese Beat Columbus?".

At a press briefing held in Royal Navy College, Shao Wenguang, Managing Director of Phoenix Chinese News and Entertainment Limited, said this documentary would be the first attempt and biggest investigative television documentary in Chinese media regarding a theory put forward by Menzies, the author of "1421, the Year China Discovered the World".

This also the second time PhoenixTV has worked with Menzies since its "PhoenixTV to the Western Sea", launched in 2004, he said.

Menzies, 67, trained in ocean mapping, marine navigation, meteorological studies and navigational history, has traveled the routes of Columbus and Magellan. In the last 20 years, he visited 120 countries, 900 libraries and museums and almost all the major ports in the world.

In November 2002, Mr Menzies suggested that China's Admiral Zheng He in Ming Dynasty had circumnavigated the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, the Arctic, the Antarctic and all European Explorers "Discovered" the New World with Zheng He's Maps on hand. It turned the academic world upside down.

Since then, Menzies' book has sold around 1 million copies in 105 countries, in 24 languages. An epic film is being developed by Warner Brothers China.

PhoenixTV film-crew and Mr. Menzies will visit the American East Coast and examine the findings, artifacts, ancient buildings, archives and records, culture, habits, communities, plants, live stocks and DNA studies, said Menzies at the briefing. The first stage of the study will take around 30 days.

Both Shao and Menzies believed that the documentary would advance the knowledge of the world public to the relationship between China and early American history and culture, and provide new research directions to solve the historical mystery and puzzles of Admiral Zheng He's Expeditions.

Source: Xinhua