Taiwan is investigating whether a ship linked to China is responsible for damaging one of the undersea cables connecting Taiwan to the Internet, the latest reminder of how vulnerable Taiwan's critical infrastructure is to damage from China.
The incident comes as anxiety has grown in Europe over apparent acts of sabotage, including those targeting undersea communications cables. Two fiber optic cables were cut under the Baltic Sea in November, prompting officials from Sweden, Finland and Lithuania to detain a Chinese-flagged commercial ship in the area for weeks over its possible involvement.
In Taiwan, communications were quickly diverted after damage was detected and there were no major outages. The island's main telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom, received notification on Friday morning that the cable, known as Trans-Pacific Express Cable, had been damaged. That cable also connects with South Korea, Japan, China and the United States.
That afternoon, the Taiwan Coast Guard intercepted a cargo ship off the northern city of Keelung, in an area near where half a dozen cables make landfall. The ship was owned by a Hong Kong company and was crewed by seven Chinese nationals, Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration said.
The damaged cable is one of more than a dozen that help keep Taiwan online. These fragile cables are susceptible to breaking by anchors dragged along the sea floor by the numerous ships in the busy waters around Taiwan.
Analysts and officials say that while it is difficult to prove whether the damage to these cables is intentional, such an act would fit a pattern of intimidation and psychological warfare by China aimed at weakening Taiwan's defenses.
Taiwan said the cargo ship it intercepted was registered under the flags of Cameroon and Tanzania. “The possibility that a Chinese flag of convenience vessel may engage in gray zone harassment cannot be ruled out,” the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement Monday.
Such harassment, which makes Taiwanese forces uncomfortable but stops short of open confrontation, has a desensitizing effect over time, according to Yisuo Tzeng, a researcher at the National Defense and Security Research Institute, a think tank funded by the Ministry of Defense. from Taiwan. That puts Taiwan at risk of being caught off guard in the event of an actual conflict, Tzeng said.
Taiwan suffers almost daily incursions into its waters and airspace by the People's Liberation Army. Last month, China sent nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels to the area's waters, the largest such operation in nearly three decades.
China has also deployed militarized fishing vessels and its coast guard fleet to disputes around the South China Sea region, and has stepped up patrols just a few miles off the coast of Taiwan's outer islands, raising the risk of clashes. dangerous.
That harassment has been a “defining marker of Chinese coercion against Taiwan for decades, but in the last two years it has really increased,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And in situations like this and the recent damage to cables under the Baltic Sea, it is difficult for authorities to gauge their response when a ship's true identity is uncertain.
“Does a Coast Guard ship deploy every time there is an illegal sand dredge or, in this case, a ship that is registered under a flag of convenience and has ties to China damages an undersea cable?” Mr. Poling asked.
Ship tracking data and ship logs analyzed by The Times show that the ship may have been broadcasting its positions under a false name.
Taiwan said the ship appeared to use two sets of automatic identification system equipment, which is used to transmit a ship's position. On January 3, at the time Taiwan said the cable was damaged, a ship called Shun Xing 39 was reporting its AIS positions in the waters off Taiwan's northeast coast.
Approximately nine hours later, at around 4:51 pm local time, Shun Xing 39 stopped transmitting location data. That was shortly after the Taiwan Coast Guard said it had located the ship and requested it return to waters outside Keelung port for an investigation.
A minute later, and 50 feet away, a ship called Xing Shun 39, which had not reported a position since late December, began transmitting a signal, according to William Conroy, a maritime analyst. with Semaphore Maritime Solutions, which analyzed AIS data on the Starboard ship tracking platform.
In the ship tracking database, both the Xing Shun 39 and Shun to require registration with the International Maritime Organization and obtain a unique identification number known as the IMO number. Xing Shun 39 has an IMO number, but Shun Xing 39 does not appear in the IMO database. This suggests that “Xing Shun 39” is the ship's true identity and that “Shun Xing 39” is fake, according to Conroy.
Taiwan's Coast Guard publicly identified the ship as Shun Xing 39 and said the ship used two AIS systems.
Corporate and vessel records show that Jie Yang Trading Ltd, a Hong Kong-based company, took over ownership of Xing Shun 39 in April 2024.
The waves were too large to board the cargo ship and investigate further, the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration said. Taiwan is seeking help from South Korea because the cargo ship's crew said it was headed to that country, the administration said.
In 2023, the outlying Matsu Islands, within sight of the Chinese coast, Spotty Internet supported for months after two undersea Internet cables broke. These fiber optic cables that connect Taiwan to the Internet suffered around 30 such breaks between 2017 and 2023.
The frequent outages are a reminder that Taiwan's communications infrastructure must be able to withstand a crisis.
To help ensure Taiwan can stay online if the cables fail, the government has been looking for a backup, including building a network of low-Earth orbit satellites capable of beaming Internet to Earth from space. Crucially, Taiwan officials are rushing to build their system without the involvement of Elon Musk, whose rocket company, SpaceX, dominates the satellite Internet industry but whose deep business ties in China have made them cautious.
