The Taiwanese telecommunications company Chunghwa Telecom and the country's coastguard report that the Chinese cargo ship Shunxing 39 is believed to have caused damage to a communication cable near the port city of Chilung (Keelung) on Taiwan's north coast on Friday morning, reports The Financial Times.
Tracking data shows that the ship dropped its anchor at the site of the cable break. However, the coastguard was unable to board the ship due to bad weather, and seizing the ship was not possible since too much time had passed since the incident.
Asking South Korea for Help
Taiwan has now asked South Korea for help in investigating the ship as it is currently sailing towards the South Korean city of Busan.
The ship is sailing under the Cameroonian flag, but according to Taiwan, it is owned by the Hong Kong-registered company Jie Yang Trading Limited, whose only listed board member is Guo Wenjie – a Chinese citizen.
This is yet another case of a very worrying global trend of sabotage against submarine cables, says a high-ranking person within Taiwan's national security service, who notes that the ship has similarities with the vessels included in Russia's so-called shadow fleet and claims that it is not an "innocent accident".
Redirected
The Beijing regime is still trying to claim that Taiwan should be part of China. The Financial Times writes that there is concern in Taiwan that China could cut off Taiwan's external data cables in an attempt to annex the country.
The damaged cable is an internet cable connecting Taiwan with the US West Coast and is owned by an international consortium. The data connection was immediately restored through redirection to other cables.
In October 2023, a Finnish gas pipeline and two data cables connecting Sweden, Estonia, and Finland were damaged. A ship is suspected of having caused the damage.
In mid-November 2024, two underwater cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged, one between Finland and Germany, the other between Sweden and Lithuania. Suspicion falls on Russia, which is believed to have carried out the sabotage via the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3.
In early December 2024, two new cable breaks were discovered on internet connections between Sweden and Finland. Initially, sabotage was suspected, but this was later denied by Finnish police.
On Christmas Day 2024, a new cable break occurred on the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia. The tanker Eagle S, flagged on the Cook Islands and believed to belong to the Russian shadow fleet, is suspected of the cable break. Three communication cables were also destroyed.
