Taiwan accuses China of damaging submarine communications cable

Financial Times reported the information.

According to Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan's Coast Guard, on January 3, the Shunxing39 vessel may have caused damage to the cable near Keelung Port.

Although the ship sails under the Cameroonian flag, it is owned by a Chinese company, with the owner being Chinese national Guo Wenjie.

After the incident, Chunghwa Telecom quickly redirected data transmission to other international cables, but Taiwan expressed concern that China could intentionally disrupt communication links during potential attempts to capture the island.

According to the FT, the damaged cable is part of the global Trans-Pacific Express Cable System (TPE) connecting Taiwan to the U.S. Its operation is managed by a consortium that includes Chunghwa Telecom, American AT&T, Japanese NTT, Korea Telecom, as well as Chinese companies China Telecom and China Unicom.

A representative of Taiwan's Coast Guard mentioned they were unable to interrogate the ship's captain, as the vessel had left the incident area. Therefore, Taiwan has reached out to South Korea, where the ship is expected to arrive in the port of Busan in the coming days.

Satellite data and the vessel's automatic identification system signal confirmed that the Shunxing39 was in the cable break area and was anchoring there. Taiwan expects South Korea to assist in questioning the ship's crew to clarify the circumstances of the incident.

• On November 18, the 1,173 km long C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the Baltic Sea. Later, another damaged submarine telecommunications cable was discovered between Lithuania and Sweden.
• Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius believes it could have been an act of sabotage.
• At the same time, investigators suspect that the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 may have deliberately dragged its anchor along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to damage two communication cables between Lithuania, Finland, and Germany.