The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Raymond Powell – founder and director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University, and retired U.S. Air Force colonel with 35 years of service – is the 446th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
In a recent incident, a Chinese-owned cargo vessel, Shunxing-39, cut undersea fiber-optic cables near Taiwan’s Keelung Harbor. What does this signal to Taipei?
The employment of third-country flagged cargo vessels to carry out undersea cable and pipeline sabotage operations appears to be a new element in Beijing’s ongoing gray zone warfare against Taiwan. China is exploiting the weaknesses in Taiwan’s position as an island nation dependent on maritime commerce and communications, while hiding behind commercial ships flying so-called “flags-of-convenience” (such as Tanzania and Cameroon) to deflect blame.
Analyze the intentions behind Chinese vessels’ cutting undersea cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year.
What we appear to be seeing is a growing Russia-China gray zone collaboration, perhaps moving in the direction of a full-fledged “axis.” Beijing can surreptitiously aid Moscow in its far-away European fight, which adds one more layer of deniability to the attribution of responsibility. Likewise, we have seen indications of Russian-ported vessels conducting suspicious activities off of Taiwan’s coast.
Examine undersea cable sabotage as an emerging trend in China’s gray zone warfare.
China continues to expand its already vast gray zone toolkit, having long ago calculated that its willingness to blur the lines between peace and hostilities provides it with an asymmetric advantage. Previously unheard of activities – such as turning lonely reefs into major South China Sea military bases; employing fishing vessels as paramilitary forces; or surveying and patrolling other nations’ waters as a means of expanding sovereign claims – are examples of how Beijing wins in the gray zone while its adversaries are still trying to diagnose the problem within their neat categories of laws and norms.
With China’s coastline ringed by U.S. partners and allies, China has determined to attack their natural vulnerabilities as island nations. Cable and pipeline sabotage is more than mere harassment; it is a reminder that Beijing has the ability to cause far more damage to its enemies, should it choose to do so. This adds to its coercive power over those countries as it seeks regional hegemony.
How can targeted countries of cable sabotage pre-empt and mitigate future risks?
Subsea cables are especially vulnerable to sabotage or even exploitation, as they are extremely long, difficult to monitor, and unprotected against a determined adversary. If nothing else, these events should alert governments and private-sector providers that the seabed is no longer insulated from malign actors.
This will put a premium on hardening subsea cables and pipelines, which will make them more expensive to manufacture and deploy. It will also require governments to invest in much more sophisticated undersea surveillance systems, and in building redundant delivery methods so that any one break doesn’t cripple an entire economy.
Assess China’s undersea cable sabotage strategy in the broader context of China-U.S. strategic rivalry.
What we are witnessing is a much more brazen Beijing now employing full-spectrum gray zone tactics behind vanishingly thin facades of opacity or deniability. China seems much less concerned about reputational costs, calculating that any international outrage will be limited and manageable.
This reflects both its strategy and its experience. China’s experience has been that international outrage is fleeting and of minimal real cost, while its strategy is to normalize increasingly aggressive behavior so that lower levels of aggression become routine and barely noted. We’ve seen this play out across many domains, including in the air, on or under the sea, in cyberspace, and through lawfare. So accustomed has the world become to it that incidents that used to generate headlines now barely receive public mention.