The cutting of a submarine cable outside of the Keelung Harbor earlier this month has led to renewed concerns about Chinese attempts to disrupt telecommunications in Taiwan.
The disruption occurred under suspicious circumstances, with a Chinese cargo vessel suspected of dragging its anchor in an unusual crisscross pattern aimed at cutting the cable. Initial reports named the vessel as the Cameroon-flagged Shunxin-39.
The Chunghwa Telecom notified the Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration that the cable had been cut at 12:40 p.m. on January 3. Chunghwa Telecom, which is one of Taiwan’s major domestic telecom operators, has emphasized that services were not affected after the cable was cut, as back-up systems were in place.
While it is not unusual for vessels to operate under the flag of another nation than their actual nation of origin, the name Shunxin-39 was a giveaway that the vessel was, in fact, of Chinese origin. Moreover, the Shunxin-39 is owned by Jie Yang Trading Limited, a Hong Kong company. Company director Guo Wen-jie is thought to be a Chinese national, due to having a Guangdong address. The crew of the vessel consisted of seven Chinese nationals.
However, there is no vessel registered to the International Maritime Organization by the name of Shunxin-39. The vessel seemed to contain two sets of Automatic Identification System (AIS) equipment. This suggested that the true identity of the vessel was, in fact, the Tanzania-flagged Xing Shun-39. The reverse naming – Shunxin vs Xing Shun – suggested a link between the vessel’s two identities.
Efforts to regulate often murky maritime lawbreaking have often taken aim at vessels that switch off their transponders, potentially to engage in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The focus on IUU fishing as part of maritime law enforcement efforts includes the assumption that vessels involved in such activities could potentially also be implicated in other forms of lawbreaking, such as human trafficking or illegal transhipping – the process of transferring cargo from one ship to another.
It is unusual for a vessel to contain two sets of AIS equipment. The set of AIS equipment that named the vessel as the Shunxin-39 was later found to have been turned off.
An investigation by the Liberty Times, Taiwan’s most widely read newspaper, later indicated that the Shunxin-39 had been present in Taiwan’s territorial waters for three months. The Liberty Times found the vessel’s AIS to have been sporadically turned off, including being switched off shortly before the submarine cable was severed. There was no record of the Shunxin-39 arriving in Keelung, Taiwan’s major northern port, and the vessel’s point of origin is also unknown.
The Taiwanese Coast Guard was unable to board the vessel after the submarine cable was cut, due to weather conditions not allowing for an inspection.
The Taiwanese government has requested cooperation from South Korean authorities in determining the intentions of the vessel, seeing as South Korea is its next destination. Given the vessel’s unclear point of origin and destination, it is not certain if the Shunxin-39 has, in fact, actually set out for South Korea.
Since the cable was severed, the Taiwanese government, as well as civil defense groups such as the Kuma Academy, have termed the incident to be a form of Chinese gray-zone activity.
This is not the first time that damage to submarine cables have prompted alarm in Taiwan, given the possibility that China would seek to cut submarine cables in order to prevent Taiwan from effectively communicating in wartime. Two submarine cables between Taiwan’s outlying island of Matsu and the Taiwanese mainland were cut on February 2 and February 8 in 2023. Submarine cables to Matsu had been cut by Chinese vessels before, with submarine cables damaged 30 times between 2017 and 2023 in what were thought to be accidents. But that two submarine cables were cut within a week led to some suspicions.
As a result, telecommunications to Matsu were disrupted, such that sending a text message could take 15 to 20 minutes. With Matsu’s 13,000 residents cut off from the rest of Taiwan in this way, it took 50 days for repairs to take place.
Disruption to communications in Matsu led to public discussion in Taiwan about potential scenarios in which China could seek to cut the 14 submarine cables linking Taiwan to the internet. As satellite internet providers could remedy this infrastructure weakness of Taiwan, Elon Musk’s Starlink was contemplated as one possible option. But concern over Musk’s political views – with the tech billionaire having made public statements to the effect that Taiwan should pursue a “one country, two systems” arrangement with China similar to that of Hong Kong in the past – later led Taiwan to instead sign a deal with U.K. satellite Internet provider OneWeb.
Other recent incidents abroad have seen Chinese vessels accused of cutting submarine cables. In November 2024, the Yi Peng 3 was accused of severing two submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, one of which linked Germany and Finland and the other running between Lithuania and Sweden. The year before, in October 2023, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship, the NewNew Polar Bear, was accused of damaging the Balticconnector, an undersea gas pipeline connecting Estonia and Finland, as well as two submarine cables. In August 2024, a Chinese investigation admitted the NewNew Polar Bear had been at fault, but insisted the damage was accidental.
As severing submarine cables or gas pipelines has been a Russian tactic in past years, such incidents were sometimes framed as examples that China has learned from Russian means of conducting gray-zone activity. Either way, the severing of submarine cables as a form of gray-zone tactic can also be seen as dovetailing with the military-civil fusion of China’s civilian fleet and the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Several days after the Shunxin-39 incident, a Mongolia-flagged vessel that also had a recognizably Chinese name, the Baoshun, was found to be moving in a similar zig-zag pattern off of the coast of Shimen District in New Taipei. The vessel was driven off by the Taiwanese Coast Guard.
Since these incidents, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense (MND) has stated that it will designate four areas to maintain surveillance of submarine cable vulnerabilities off the coasts of New Taipei’s Bali District, Pingtung County’s Fangshan Township, Yilan County’s Toucheng Township, and the outlying island of Penghu. The MND will focus its surveillance on vessels that move unusually, stall movement, or show irregular changes in speed.
At the same time, the MND has also emphasized that it will be the Coast Guard Administration that remains responsible for responding to submarine cable disruptions. To date, even with incidents of Chinese vessels intruding in Taiwanese territorial waters, the MND has consistently emphasized that it does not intend to step up naval activity, and that the Taiwanese Coast Guard will remain responsible for responding. In response to such incidents, the Coast Guard itself has also sought to stress its civilian nature, calling for volunteers from the general public to join patrols. The Coast Guard also pledged to increase transparency by requiring body cameras for patrols. In this sense, Taiwan has sought to avoid escalation and emphasize a civilian response to maritime incidents that potentially stand to ramp up tensions.
