Taiwan is investigating whether a ship linked to China is responsible for damaging one of the undersea cables connecting Taiwan to the internet. This is a final reminder of how vulnerable Taiwan's critical infrastructure is to damage from China.
The incident comes at a time of growing concern in Europe over apparent acts of sabotage, including acts of sabotage targeting such undersea communications cables. Two fiber optic cables under the Baltic Sea were severed in November, prompting officials from Sweden, Finland and Lithuania to stop a Chinese-flagged commercial ship in the area for weeks over its possible involvement.
In Taiwan, communications were quickly rerouted after the damage was discovered, and there was no major outage. The island's main telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom, received a report Friday morning that the cable, known as the Trans-Pacific Express Cable, had been damaged. That cable also connects South Korea, Japan, China and the United States.
That afternoon, the Taiwanese coast guard intercepted a cargo ship off the northern city of Keelung, in an area near where six cables come ashore. The ship was owned by a Hong Kong company and crewed by seven Chinese nationals, the Taiwan Coast Guard said.
The damaged cable is one of more than a dozen that help keep Taiwan online. These fragile cables are susceptible to breakage from anchors dragged along the seabed by the many ships in the busy waters around Taiwan.
Analysts and officials say that while it is difficult to prove whether damage to these cables is intentional, such an act would fit into a pattern of intimidation and psychological warfare by China aimed at weakening Taiwan's defenses.
Taiwan said the intercepted cargo ship had registered under the flags of both Cameroon and Tanzania. “The possibility of a Chinese-flagged vessel engaging in gray zone harassment cannot be ruled out,” the coast guard said in a statement on Monday.
Such intimidation, which hinders Taiwan's armed forces but does not lead to open confrontation, has a desensitizing effect over time, according to Yisuo Tzeng, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank funded by Taiwan's ministry of Defense. That puts Taiwan at risk of being overwhelmed in the event of a real conflict, Mr. Tzeng said.
Taiwan faces almost daily raids on its waters and airspace by the People's Liberation Army. Last month, China sent nearly 90 naval and coast guard ships to the area's waters, the largest operation in nearly three decades.
China has also deployed militarized fishing boats and its coast guard fleet in disputes around the South China Sea, and increased patrols just miles off the coast of Taiwan's outer islands, raising the risk of dangerous clashes.
Such intimidation has been a defining feature of Chinese coercion against Taiwan for decades, but has really increased in recent years,” 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 the cables under the Baltic Sea, it is difficult for authorities to tailor their response when a ship's true identity is uncertain.
“Do you deploy a coast guard ship every time there is an illegal sand dredger or, in this case, a ship registered under a flag of convenience and with Chinese ties, damaging a submarine cable?” Mr. Poling asked.
Tracking data and ship data analyzed by The Times show the ship may have broadcast its positions under a false name.
Taiwan said the ship appeared to be using two sets of automatic identification systems, which are used to broadcast a ship's position. On January 3, just as Taiwan said the cable was damaged, a ship named Shun Xing 39 reported its AIS positions in the waters off Taiwan's northeastern coast.
About nine hours later, at around 4:51 PM local time, Shun Xing 39 stopped sending location data. That was shortly after the time the Taiwan Coast Guard said it had located the ship and requested it return to waters outside Keelung Port for 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, said William Conroy, a maritime analyst. with Semaphore Maritime Solutions, which analyzed AIS data on the ship tracking platform Starboard.
In the ship tracking database, both the Xing Shun 39 and Shun Xing 39 identify themselves as cargo ships with a Class A AIS transponder. Normally, a cargo ship equipped with this class of transponder would be large enough to require registration with the International Maritime Organization and obtain a unique identification number known as an 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 real identity of the ship and that “Shun Xing 39” is a fake, Mr Conroy said.
The Taiwan Coast Guard has publicly identified the ship as Shun Xing 39.
Ship and company 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 conduct further investigations, the Taiwan Coast Guard said. Taiwan is seeking help from South Korea because the cargo ship's crew said it was headed to that country, the government said.
In 2023, the remote Matsu Islands, within sight of the Chinese coast, suffered months of patchy internet after two submarine internet cables broke. These fiber-optic cables that connect Taiwan to the internet suffered about 30 such breaks between 2017 and 2023.
The frequent ruptures are a reminder that Taiwan's communications infrastructure must be able to withstand a crisis.
To ensure Taiwan can stay online if the cables go down, the government is pursuing a backup plan, including building a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can beam the Internet from space to Earth. Crucially, officials in Taiwan 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 wary.
