UPDATED 5.56PM: There's hope a shipwreck will strengthen our ties with China.

The SS Ventnor sank off Northland's west coast in 1902, carrying the remains of 499 Chinese goldminers.

They were being repatriated to their ancestral home.

Ventnor Project chair John Albert says [told Larry Williams] the Chinese were very much a part of early New Zealand.

He says the men who went down with the Ventnor were part of the beginning of the bond between the two nations.

John Albert says the discovery of the Ventnor's wreck can only strengthen our cultural ties with China.