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Taiwan asked South Korea for help in investigating a Chinese-owned ship suspected of cutting an undersea cable off its northern coast on Friday.
Taiwanese telecommunications company Chunghwa Telecom and the Taiwan Coast Guard said on Saturday that the cargo ship Shunxing39 is believed to have caused damage to a telecommunications cable – near the port of Keelung on Taiwan's northern coast – on the morning of January 3.
This follows incidents in which Chinese ships came under scrutiny when fiber optic cables were exposed in the Baltic Sea It was cut off Last November, gas pipeline and cable damaged There in October 2023.
The latest event highlights the vulnerability of critical maritime communications and energy infrastructure and the difficulties in prosecuting acts of sabotage.
While the ship is sailing under the Cameroonian flag, Taiwanese officials said it is owned by Ji Yang Trading Co., Ltd. The only listed director of the Hong Kong-registered company is Guo Wenjie, a citizen of mainland China.
Chunghwa Telecom said data communications were immediately restored by rerouting data to other international submarine cables.
But Taipei is concerned that China could surreptitiously cut off Taiwan's external communications links in any potential attempt to annex the country. Beijing claims sovereignty over the island and has threatened to seize it by force if necessary.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials from Chunghwa Telecom and the Taiwan government told the Financial Times that the damaged cable is part of the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System. The submarine Internet cable connecting Taiwan to the West Coast of the United States is owned by an international consortium. In addition to Zhonghua, the company includes US operators AT&T, Japan's NTT and Korea Telecom, and Chinese operators China Telecom and China Unicom.
“Since it was not possible for us to question the captain, we asked the South Korean authorities to assist in the investigation at the ship’s next port of destination,” a Taiwan Coast Guard official said. A Taiwanese national security official said the ship is scheduled to arrive in Busan within the next few days.
The Taiwan Coast Guard and other government officials said tracking data from the ship's Automatic Identification System signal and satellite data showed that Shunxing39 pulled its anchor at the location where the cable ruptured.
While a Coast Guard vessel conducted an external inspection of the vessel and made radio contact with the captain, its officials were unable to board it due to the severe weather, and could not order its seizure for further investigation under international law, because it had taken too long. Officials said the incident has passed since it happened.
“This is another case of the very worrying global trend of submarine cable sabotage,” a senior Taiwanese national security official said. “The ships involved in these incidents are usually dilapidated vessels with little overt business. This is also in very poor condition. They are similar to the ships that form part of the Russian ‘shadow fleet,’” he added.
According to ship tracking data seen by the Financial Times, the Shunxing39 had been crossing waters near Taiwan's northern coast since at least December 8. The official said the pattern suggested the cable damage was not an “innocent accident.”
Chinese commercial vessels or fishing vessels have occasionally participated in some of the large military exercises that Beijing regularly conducts near Taiwan. Taipei is concerned that such operations in the “gray zone,” below the threshold of war, will make it difficult to defend against aggression that might eventually escalate into a direct attack.
Additional reporting by Chan Ho-him and Cheng Ling in Hong Kong
