Conflicts - TensionsNortheast Asia

Undersea cable cutting attacks appear linked to the PRC

FORUM Staff

As suspicious damage to undersea telecom cables and other infrastructure mounts worldwide, evidence is growing that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) may be involved in much of the alleged sabotage.

Vessels tied to the PRC and Russia have been linked to most of the incidents through automated ship tracking that pinpoints their location at the time of the attacks, according to officials and news reports.

On January 3, 2025, the Chinese-owned Shunxin-39, a Cameroon- and Tanzania-registered cargo ship with an all-Chinese crew, damaged four cores of a cable near Yehliu, a cape in New Taipei City, Taiwan, according to Australia’s ABC News.

Taiwan authorities consider the PRC to be the leading suspect, according to The Wall Street Journal newspaper. Originally, the ship carried a PRC-flag, but its registration was changed in 2024, Maritime Executive magazine reported. In recent years, Taiwan’s underwater telecom cables, which provide data information and internet services, have been damaged several dozen times.

The Shunxin-39 was operating under two registries and carried two sets of automatic identification system (AIS) equipment, which were turned off shortly before the activities in question, the Taipei Times newspaper reported.

Taiwan’s Navy rehearses defensive tactics during an annual exercise in January 2025.
VIDEO CREDIT: MIRROR NEWS/REUTERS

Herming Chiueh, Taiwan’s deputy digital affairs minister, told The Wall Street Journal that the cable damage was almost certainly intentional. “You need to accidentally [drop your] anchor on the cable, and then you need to accidentally turn on your engine with the anchor down, and even [if] you realize your anchor is down, you need to keep the engine moving until you cut the cable,” Chiueh said.

Ho Cheng-hui, chief executive of Taiwan nonprofit civil defense organization Kuma Academy, said the incident is part of Beijing’s broader strategy to test the limits of international tolerance through aggressive tactics that stop short of acts of war, the Taipei Times reported.

“This is not an isolated event,” Ho said. “China has a history of targeting Taiwan’s infrastructure to probe international responses.”

In February 2023, Taiwan authorities suspected PRC ships severed two cables to Matsu, cutting internet service to the main island. From 2018 to 2023, there were more than two dozen such incidents around the Matsu islands, which are in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China.

The PRC has been tied to other attacks globally. In November 2024, European authorities suspected the Chinese-flagged ship Yi Peng 3 damaged two intersecting submarine cables in the Baltic Sea that connect Lithuania to Sweden and Germany to Finland. Some authorities suspect Russia may have also been linked to the attack.

In October 2023, the Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear damaged a gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland with its anchor. Almost a year later, after a Finnish investigation, the PRC admitted the container ship was responsible but claimed it was accidental.

The early January 2025 incident in Taiwan came after other disruptions in the Baltic Sea, including apparent attacks a week earlier that cut an internet cable between Finland and Germany and then one between Finland and Sweden. Finnish officials blamed Russia for the damage.

Also in January, Newsweek magazine reported that PRC engineers over the past 15 years have developed equipment to efficiently cut undersea cables. An analysis of Chinese-language patent applications indicated that Beijing is interested in cutting undersea cables, but it didn’t produce evidence that the patented devices were used to do so.

“China certainly has the technical capacity and motivation to take on such a hybrid threat operation, in which a nominally commercial vessel is suddenly utilized for subsea infrastructure sabotage around Taiwan — after all this is the trend we continue to see play out in European waters, and also mirrors other recent incidents in the cross [Taiwan] Strait region, such as the 2023 cutting of subsea telecoms cables to the Matsu islands by a purported Chinese fishing vessel,” Benjamin L. Schmitt, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, told Newsweek.

“The fact that there are multiple technical patents that Chinese engineers applied for to conduct such a subsea cable cutting operation only adds to the suspicion that Beijing may have not only the motivation, but also is actively developing technical options for completing these sort of subsea warfare operations in the future,” Schmitt said.

Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, a Stanford University project that tracks the PRC’s coercive maritime tactics, also described incidents involving civilian vessels that fly flags of convenience to damage undersea infrastructure. “What Beijing wants to do is convince you that your cause is doomed so you might as well just accept Beijing’s terms and then at least you won’t have to shed blood over it,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

Schmitt advocates for a response that includes NATO consultative mechanisms and increased offshore and satellite monitoring. “It is vital that global democracies mount a significant response to deter future attempts by Russia and China to disrupt Western critical subsea infrastructure, acts which aim to undermine democratic resilience,” he said.

Taiwan will dispatch its Navy if necessary to address suspicious activities near underwater telecom cables, Defense Minister Wellington Koo said in mid-January 2025, The Associated Press reported.

Taiwan also is enhancing efforts to secure its communications infrastructure, including developing low and medium Earth orbiting satellite systems. “We will work tirelessly to ensure accountability and bolster defences against future threats,” Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration stated in January.

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