US allies' undersea cables are cut, world looks to Russia and China
A series of incidents involving undersea cables has drawn attention to their vulnerability and cast suspicion on vessels from Russia and China.
HONG KONG — First the Baltics, now Taiwan. This month saw the latest in a spate of incidents in which crucial undersea cables connecting U.S. allies have been damaged or severed.
Some have been cast as acts of sabotage, pinning blame on Russia and China amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Early this month, Taiwan’s coast guard said it had intercepted the Xing Shun 39 — a Hong Kong-owned freighter carrying the Cameroonian and Tanzanian flags — after the Beijing-claimed island’s biggest telecom company, Chunghwa Telecom, alerted authorities that an international undersea cable had been damaged on Jan. 3.
A “preliminary assessment” suggested the damage might have been caused by the freighter, which “transited the area at the time of the incident,” the coast guard said.
With an average of about 200 cable faults a year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, damage to undersea communications infrastructure is not uncommon. The majority is caused by ship anchors or fishing activity such as trawling, where heavy equipment is dragged across the seafloor.
Rating: 5