Though European authorities have detained ships when sabotage is suspected, in the absence of concrete proof they have stopped short of directly blaming Moscow or Beijing.
Still, the anxiety in Taiwan is heightened.
“Patrol of undersea cables is really time-consuming. It adds an extra burden and becomes more resource-consuming for the coast guard,” said Yisuo Tzeng, a Taipei-based researcher at Taiwan’s defense ministry-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
The Taiwanese coast guard said that although the intentions of the Xing Shun 39 on Jan. 3 were “impossible to confirm,” it could not rule out the possibility of the vessel “engaging in gray-zone interference.”
The coast guard said it was unable to board the vessel due to bad weather, but had asked South Korean authorities in Busan, its destination port, to collect evidence.
Data from Marine Traffic showed the freighter making erratic movements that day a few miles off Taiwan’s northern city of Keelung, where a submarine cable connects the island to both the U.S. and China.
Because the cable is also connected to China, some analysts say it may be premature to blame Beijing for the disruption.
“If there is an outage of a particular cable for half a day, for one hour, we’re talking billions of dollars of investment loss,” said Gerard Parr, who has worked on submarine cable projects and is a professor of telecommunications engineering at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
“There’s nothing to be gained by this because there’s economic value in maintaining the cable,” he added.
While Chunghwa Telecom has not said which cable was damaged, the Taiwanese giant co-owns the Trans-Pacific Express, a nearly 11,000-mile undersea system that connects Taiwan with China, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
Companies from all of those places share ownership of the cables.
“We’re looking at a shared infrastructure, shared risk situation, because Taiwan and China are part of the same networks. And this fact should not be overlooked,” said Cynthia Mehboob, who studies undersea cables in the Indo-Pacific at the Australian National University.
All seven crew members aboard the freighter were Chinese nationals, the Taiwan coast guard said. It said the ship was owned by a Hong Kong company called Jie Yang Trading, which according to public records was incorporated in 2020.
Its Chinese-national director, Guo Wenjie, denied that his ship was responsible for the damage, saying “there’s no evidence at all.”
“I spoke to the ship captain and for us it was a normal trip,” he told Reuters.
NBC News was unable to reach Guo.
Taiwan’s suspicion toward Beijing stems in part from a 2023 incident in which the 14,000 people who live on the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands, which sit close to the Chinese mainland, were disconnected from the internet after two undersea cables connecting the islands were cut.
At the time, authorities said a Chinese fishing vessel and freighter had damaged the cables, but said there was no evidence that it was deliberate.
The same year, another Chinese ship called NewNew Polar Bear damaged a gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland. It took months for Beijing to admit that its ship was responsible, saying it was an accident..
index index index index index index index index index index index index index
“What this has done in recent years is expose the vulnerability of these cables that have been out of sight, out of mind,” Parr said.
Analysis included in the Rings of Fire report shows that in the past 100 years there has been a significant increase in the number of “tropical” nights, when temperatures do not drop below 20C (68F). Between 1924 and 1933, only four tropical nights were observed in Paris. In 2014-2023, the city experienced a total of 84 tropical nights – 21 times more.
Mohan says she has “mixed feelings” about the lack of air conditioning in the village. She says she understands organisers’ commitment to sustainability but is worried about the impact heat will have on her health and recovery following the triathlon. “Recovery is very important for athletes,” she says. “I want to be safe. I don’t want to come back injured and I don’t want to not have my best performance on the day.”
The organisers of the games have said that Paralympic delegations will be provided with one free air-conditioning unit for every three athletes for medical reasons, as some athletes experience thermoregulation problems.
