Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure.
The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage.
Photo: Screengrab from the Coast Guard Administration’s Facebook page
The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also been accused of deliberate sabotage, although it can be difficult to prove.
“This is why Taiwan needs to build its telecommunications resilience, and strengthen its situation awareness in the surrounding waters,” Institute for National Defense and Security Research postdoctoral researcher Hsu Chih-hsiang (許智翔) said. “Otherwise, the system would be easily undermined, and it would be difficult to hold the suspect accountable.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Previously, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) named Cameroon-flagged Shunxing 39 as the suspected offender without identifying its ownership.
Officers tried, but were unable to board the vessel for investigation due to rough weather, the CGA said.
The damage did not affect connection, because data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said in a statement on Saturday.
The company co-owns the cable system along with AT&T of the US and regional operators including Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone and China Telecom, the Financial Times said.
Taiwan has asked South Korea for help with the investigation, as the ship is due to arrive in Busan in the coming days, it said.
The integrity of undersea cables has been a rising security concern in Taiwan. As recent as in 2023, telecommunication services in Lienchiang County (Matsu) were disrupted for months after Chinese fishing vessels cut the cables.
To back up connections in the event of a failure, the Taiwan Space Agency in 2023 said it intends to launch its first self-made low Earth orbit communications satellite next year and at least one more by 2028.
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