Taiwanese authorities claim that a China-linked ship entered its waters and damaged a subsea cable.
As reported by local media, four fibers of a Chunghwa Telecom-operated subsea cable were damaged off the coast at Yehliu, New Taipei City, on January 3, 2025.
The Cameroon-registered cargo ship Shunxin 39 was docked in the port of Keelung in Taiwan when it allegedly damaged the cable as it left for South Korea.
Chunghwa Telecom did not specify which of its 12 cables that land in Taiwan was damaged, however it added that connectivity was not disrupted.
Taiwanese media has quoted a local security expert as saying the incident was deliberate and that the ship’s true owner is a Chinese national named Guo Wenjie. The ship is said to be owned by Hong Kong-registered Jie Yang Trading.
The Taiwanese Coast Guard said it was unable to confirm whether the Shunxin 39 is actually Chinese-owned, despite having a Chinese name.
The coast guard could also not board the ship for investigation or detain the vessel.
This is not the first time China-linked vessels have been accused of deliberately cutting subsea cables.
At the end of last year, international investigators suspected that the Yi Peng 3 ship purposefully sailed over the C-Lion1 Helsinki-Rostock and BCS East-West link cables in the Baltic Sea.
In October 2023, the Chinese ship Newnew Polar Bear was suspected of damaging cables and an undersea pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
