Chinese cargo ship suspected of telecom cable damage, goes dark

A Chinese-owned ship is being accused of damaging an undersea internet cable connecting Taiwan to outlying islands, according to reports from the region, following accusations of a similar cable-cutting incident by China in Europe’s Baltic Sea just weeks ago.

Taiwan’s Coast Guard stated in a notice that the cable was damaged Friday in waters off the northern coast of the island, the state-owned Central News Agency reported from Taipei.

Taiwanese officials told the Taipei Times the cable disruption was the result of Chinese sabotage.

The cable disruption is the second related to Chinese ships in recent weeks. European authorities suspect a Chinese freighter severed two underwater cables in the Baltic Sea in November that disrupted regional communications and prompted claims of pro-Russian sabotage.

China is politically backing Russia in its war in Ukraine and the cable damage is said to be part of what military officials call “gray zone” warfare efforts by Beijing in support of its ally.

The Taiwan coast guard stated that Chunghwa Telecom, the island’s largest service provider and the owner of the cable, claimed that four cores of the cable had been damaged. However, the damage did not disrupt domestic Taiwanese communications.

The ship was identified as the Cameroonian-flagged freighter Shunxing39. Although registered in Cameroon, Taiwanese officials said the ship is owned by Jie Yang Trading Ltd., a Hong Kong-registered company headed by Chinese national Guo Wenjie.

Online shipping data showed the ship making several circuitous transits off the coast of northern Taiwan. Taiwan suspects the ship was dragging its anchor during the passages in a bid to cut the underwater cables.

A coast guard patrol boat was dispatched to the area but was unable to board the ship because of high seas.

Taiwan is reportedly seeking South Korea’s help in investigating the incident. The Shunxing39 is scheduled to make its next port visit to Busan, South Korea.

The damaged cable is one of more than nine undersea cables linking Taiwan, one of the world’s most wired and technologically sophisticated countries, to Asia and the United States.

One of the cables that lands in northern Taiwan is the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System which links Taiwan to the U.S. West Coast.

“This is another case of a very worrying global trend of sabotage against subsea cables,” a Taiwan national security official said.

A similar disruption of undersea internet lines was reported in the outlying Taiwanese island of Nangan in April, the Associated Press reported.

Two Chinese ships, a fishing vessel and a cargo ship, were blamed for that cable-cutting disruption in early February, according to the National Communications Commission.

A 2022 report by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University concluded that undersea cables near the Taiwan Strait are vulnerable to attack by China in a future invasion scenario. The report said a Chinese database gathered by open-source intelligence researchers found that China had spied on 550 targets related to Taiwan’s communications infrastructure, including Chunghwa Telecom facilities.

“The data suggest that at least one Chinese entity, possibly a government-affiliated entity, is paying close attention to a variety of economically and militarily critical locations on the island,” the report said.

Taiwan is linked to at least 15 undersea submarine cables that connect to the island at three landing stations, including at New Taipei, near where the recent cable disruption took place. The other landing stations are in the town of Toucheng on the northeast coast and in the southern town of Fangshan.

“The bedrock of the internet is the submarine cables lining the ocean floor, and new evidence reveals the points of interest for China, which include economic centers, potential military locations, and submarine cable landing stations,” the report said. Washington Times