Taiwan has experienced several dozen incidents of damage to its underwater telecom cables in recent years. | Jack Moore/Getty Images
POLITICO | Published January 6, 2025
A Cameroon-flagged tanker could not be boarded due to rough seas and steamed on toward South Korea.
Taiwan suspects that China was behind the cutting of an international undersea telecom cable early Friday morning.
According to Taiwanese media reports, the Shunxin-39, a Cameroon-flagged cargo ship, was intercepted by the country’s coast guard about 13 kilometers off the north coast of Taiwan late Friday afternoon and ordered to return closer to shore for an investigation. Rough weather prevented them from boarding the vessel, however, and the Shunxin-39 was able to continue en route to a port in South Korea.
Taiwan authorities said that although the Shunxin-39 is registered in Cameroon, it belongs to Jie Yang Trading Limited of Hong Kong headed by Guo Wenjie, a citizen of China.
Chunghwa Telecom, which is part of an international consortium that owns the cable, said it had been able to reroute telecom traffic to other cables, and that service continued uninterrupted. The $500 million Trans-Pacific Express cable has linked countries in East Asia with the United States’ West Coast since 2008.
Taiwan has experienced several dozen incidents of damage to its underwater telecom cables in recent years, without being able to definitively identify the source of the attacks, and has appealed to the European Union for help.
The Taiwan cable attacks follow the severing of an undersea power cable between Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day that Finland pinned on Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.
Such so-called gray-zone attacks have multiplied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago as Beijing and Moscow have tested the ability and readiness of the West to withstand hybrid forms of aggression.
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SOURCE: www.politico.eu
RELATED: RED MENACE Fears of Chinese sabotage as ‘deep sea cable is cut off coast of Taiwan’ days after Russian ship ‘dragged anchor’
A senior official said the latest ordeal marks ‘a very worrying global trend of sabotage’
The ship suspected of causing the damage to the cables is Shunxin 39 – which has links to ChinaCredit: Taiwan’s National Coast Guard Administration
THE SUN | Published January 6, 2025
FEARS are mounting over potential Chinese sabotage after a deep sea cable was reportedly cut off the coast of Taiwan.
A telecommunications cable was reportedly damaged near Yehliu, New Taipei City in the early hours of Friday – just days after Russia was accused of sabotage in the Baltic Sea.
It was first reported by Taiwanese telecoms operator Chunghwa Telecom before Taiwan’s Coast Guard was called in to investigate.
They discovered that four cores of the international cable had been mangled.
Officials believe the cable was cut near the busy port of Keelung on Taiwan’s north coast.
A Cameroon-registered cargo ship known as the Shunxin 39 has been blamed for causing the damage, according to Taiwan’s National Coast Guard Administration.
Tracking data from the ship’s automatic identification system signal and satellite data showed the Shunxing 39 dragged its anchor near to where the cable was ruptured, Financial Times reports.
Officers reportedly hunted down the cargo ship and ordered it to return to the Port of Keelung.
The Coast Guard inspected the outside of the ship and had a brief conversation with the captain.
But officials couldn’t step on board it due to bad weather, according to reports.
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SOURCE: www.thesun.co.uk
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