U.S. allies' undersea cables cut, world looks to Russia and China

Hong Kong – first the Baltics, now Taiwan. The latest in a series of incidents this month has seen vital undersea cables connecting U.S. allies damaged or severed.

Some were deemed acts of sabotage, with blame placed on Russia and China at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Earlier this month, Taiwan's coast guard said it intercepted a Hong Kong cargo ship flying the flags of Cameroon and Tanzania after Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest telecommunications company claimed by Beijing, informed authorities that an international undersea cable had been tapped. Xingshun No. 39″. It was damaged on January 3rd.

The Coast Guard said a “preliminary assessment” indicated the damage may have been caused by a cargo ship that was “passing through the area at the time of the incident.”

According to the International Cable Protection Commission, an average of about 200 cable failures occur each year, and it is not uncommon for undersea communications infrastructure to be damaged. Most are caused by fishing operations such as anchors or trawls, in which heavy equipment is dragged across the seafloor.

But Taiwan's government said it could be an example of China's “grey zone intervention,” an unconventional military and non-military tactic designed to weaken an opponent without engaging in a real gunfight.

Meanwhile, there is also uproar in Europe, where NATO is stepping up patrols of the Baltic cables that provide electricity and support nearly all intercontinental communications, including the internet.

Members of the defense group, which has access to the Baltic Sea, are due to meet in Helsinki on Tuesday to discuss threats to regional security including Russian cable sabotage.

The damage caused by the January 3 incident did not disrupt communications in Taiwan, as data was routed to other cables.

However, “If enough cables are cut, it could cause serious problems such as internet outages,” said Ian Li Huiyuan, an associate fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at the S. S. S. S. S. School of International Studies. “Especially for Taiwan. “Because it's an island, there's no land alternative.”

According to Reuters, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said last week that submarine cables were damaged due to “common maritime accidents” and Taiwan made accusations “out of thin air” and deliberately hyped up “so-called gray zone threats.”

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which formulates China policy, responded that the investigation will be conducted based on evidence.

The report said that Chinese “flag of convenience” ships “have a poor reputation in the international community” and pointed out that similar cases had occurred in the Baltic countries and were suspected of involving Chinese ships.

The race to protect cables

It is difficult to determine whether cable damage was accidental or intentional, but rising geopolitical tensions have raised suspicions that damage to some critical infrastructure may have been an act of sabotage.

Estonia said last month it would deploy naval assets to protect the cable connecting it to Finland after its Estlink 2 cable was damaged on Christmas Day. Finland is investigating a Russian oil tanker that was seized after the incident and may have been dragging its anchor on the seabed.

“Three cases in one year cannot be a coincidence,” Finnish President Alexander Stuab said last month.

NATO has also deployed at least two ships to the Baltic Sea region for surveillance.

While the alliance's high alert mainly concerns Russia's “shadow fleet” of smuggling vessels, Chinese-owned vessels have also come under suspicion, including last November when a cargo ship was detained for weeks in Danish waters after two fiber optic cables were damaged.

The ship, Yi Peng 3, allegedly damaged cables between Sweden and Lithuania, and Finland and Germany, after leaving the Russian port of Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland. The ship continued its voyage after investigators from Sweden and other countries were allowed on board.

Swedish authorities said they were satisfied with the inspection but did not say whether any evidence had been found. China said it would continue to cooperate with local authorities in the investigation.

Although European authorities seized ships on suspicion of sabotage, they stopped short of directly blaming Moscow or Beijing due to a lack of concrete evidence.

Still, anxiety is growing in Taiwan.

“Patroling of undersea cables is indeed time-consuming. This puts additional burden on the coast guard and consumes more resources,” said Zeng Yisuo, a Taipei-based researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Defense.

The Taiwan Coast Guard stated that although the intention of the “Xingshun 39” on January 3 was “unconfirmable”, the possibility of the ship “engaging in gray zone interference” cannot be ruled out.

The Coast Guard said it was unable to board the ship due to bad weather, but it had asked South Korean authorities in the destination port of Busan to collect evidence.

Data from maritime traffic showed the freighter was traveling erratically that day a few miles from the northern Taiwan city of Keelung, where an undersea cable connects Taiwan to the United States and China.

Because the cable also connects to China, some analysts said it may be premature to blame Beijing for the outage.

“If a cable goes down for half a day or an hour, we're talking about billions of dollars in lost investment,” said Gerard Parr, of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

“There’s no benefit to doing that because there’s economic value in maintaining the cables,” he added.

While Chunghwa Telecom did not disclose which cable was damaged, the Taiwanese giant co-owns the Trans-Pacific Express, a nearly 11,000-mile undersea system that connects Taiwan to China, Japan, South Korea and the United States

Companies in all these places own the cables.

“We're looking at a shared infrastructure, shared risk situation because Taiwan and China are part of the same network. That fact should not be ignored.” Cynthia Mehboob, who studies Indo-Pacific submarine cables at the Australian National University ) explain.

Taiwan's coast guard said all seven crew members on board the cargo ship were Chinese nationals. The ship is said to be owned by a Hong Kong company called Jie Yang Trading, which was established in 2020 according to public records.

The company's Chinese director, Guo Wenjie, denied his ship was responsible for the damage and said there was “no evidence at all.”

“I spoke to the captain and it was a normal trip for us,” he told Reuters.

NBC News was unable to reach Guo.

Taiwan's suspicion of Beijing stems in part from an incident in 2023 when two undersea cables connecting the Matsu Islands were severed, cutting off internet access for 14,000 people living on the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands near mainland China.

At the time, authorities said a Chinese fishing vessel and cargo ship had damaged the cables, but said there was no evidence this was intentional.

That same year, another Chinese ship, the Xin Xin Polar Bear, damaged a gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland. It took Beijing months to admit its ship was responsible, calling it an accident.

“In recent years, this situation has exposed the vulnerability of these cables, which have been left out of sight and out of mind,” Parr said.