The Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 was the suspected cause of the cable cutting of two fiber optic cables last November in the Baltic Sea by dragging its anchor.
Then came the Eagle S, which is now assumed to be the cause of a power cable and 4 communications cables cut on Christmas Day, also dragging its anchor on the seabed. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation is conducting forensic tests on the anchor they found at the end of the drag marks found on the sea floor to verify it came from the Eagle S
On January 3rd, a telecommunications cable serving Taiwan was cut. The cable is part of the Trans-Pacific, a fiber optic cable that links Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, and the United States.
Four hours later, a Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration (CGA) intercepted the Xing Shun 39 (IMO 8358427), a Hong Kong flagged freighter near the cable break. The seas were rough, so the Guard could not board the ship. Instead of heading to a Taiwanese port, the ship headed for Busan, South Korea, and departed Taiwanese jurisdiction.
The CGA later identified the ship as the Shunxing 39, which does not exist in IMO (International Maritime Organization) records. The CGA believe that the ship had two AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders, and it was switching the back and forth to cover their maneuvers, creating an interrupted AIS record.
The Shunxing 39 was the IMO when the Coast Guard stopped it, and later that disappeared, and the Xingshun 39 appeared 50 feet away. They have asked Korea to get evidence if it ever reaches there.
The CGA is reviewing how to respond to potential cable sabotage involving ships.
Which brings me to this story. Newsweek did a deep investigation of Chinese language patent applications (what prompted them, I have no idea), and they came across one for the device in the main picture.
Funny how it looks like an oil tanker.
It is actually described as a "dragging type undersea cable cutting device." Developed by engineers at Lishu University, in the Chinese coastal province directly opposite Taiwan. The patent is from 2020.
Somehow, the whole patent is translated into English, and is up on Google Patents. I didn't even know Google Patents existed.
"With the development of science and technology, more and more submarine cables and communication cables are laid on the sea bed of all parts of the world and the cables need to be cut off in some emergency situations," the Lishu authors wrote.
"The traditional cutting method needs first to detect the position of the cables, then excavating and salvage them for cutting. The process is complex, a lot of expensive equipment is needed, and the cost is too high. There is a need for a fast, low cost cutting apparatus for submarine cables to accomplish this task."
"Copper residue in the anchor would indicate a successful cut." That would be fine for power cables, but I don't see how that would work with fiber optic cables. Notice the engineers called it an anchor. At least that's how it was translated from the Chinese.
Newsweek contacted one of the engineers, and when asked about the device, he hung up on them.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington DC also didn't respond to an email asking about the cutting incidents and the patent application.
Newsweek did a hell of a job because they traced all the way back to another device in 2009.
The 2009 application said the need was to be able to destroy illegal cables off China that needed to be destroyed. Both the 2020 and 2009 applications were dropped or rejected for reasons that are unclear.
A Norwegian expert on undersea cables, speaking off the record, said that the idea of a need to remove illegal undersea cables was ridiculous because the method was random and could damage other cables not intended to be cut.
That's what I thought too.
Benjamin J. Schmitt, from the University of Pennsylvania, said in an email, "The fact that there are multiple technical patents that Chinese engineers applied for to conduct such a subsea cable cutting operation only leads to the suspicion that Beijing may not only have the motivation, but also is actively developing technical options for completing these sort of subsea warfare operations in the future."
"It is vital that global democracies mount a significant response to deter future attempts by Russia and China to disrupt Western critical subsea infrastructure, acts which aim to undermine democratic resilience."
"Inaction will only embolden Moscow and Beijing to continue in these disruptive sabotage operations worldwide to the detriment of global security."
I'll try not to make any cutting remarks, ahem, because this is serious business.
We don't have to guess, we know that China and Russia have used large oil tankers to drag anchors to cut cables. Deliberately outfitting a ship with one of these cutter devices would be spotted at port inspections and even at sea, if they replaced the regular anchor.
If they were kept separately on the ship, then the winch mechanisms and cable (I am assuming steel cable instead of anchor chain) would still be too big to hide and raise questions.
I think what the Chinese are up to is building warships around these cutters. In the event of a war, or to start one, these cutter ships could go out and cut cables quickly to cut off communications and power.
The strait between China and Taiwan is only 150 meters deep. That is how Xing Shun 39 was able to do its job of cutting the cable, and we'll assume it was the regular anchor.
This device doesn't have to be as heavy as an anchor to do the job, just heavy enough to keep it on the seabed floor while it's dragged. Steel cable would allow the ship to store a lot more length than chain, so they can sabotage undersea cables at much greater depths.
Are the damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline, and cuts to power and telecommunication cables a dry run to test feasibility of using a new cutting device? Probably not. Anchors don't have the sharp spots needed to cut efficiently. They possibly could be testing the tensile strength of the cables, but they already know that from cable specifications. The ships had to drag them a good distance to break them. Maybe that was part of it.
Whatever design they come up with, it has to be able to be hidden, and not on commercial ships that get inspected. Perhaps a hawespipe, which the anchor chain goes through, could allow a flexible anchor to be pulled on deck and the flexible cutting device, which looks it opens up, could then use the hawespipe and cable for its operation. Even on a military ship, they can be examined from large distances by telescope or radar, so they still need to be hidden.
They could just use a boom to get it over the side if the ship.
I'm not an engineer, but these are some thoughts of what the Russians and Chinese may be planning.
It is alarming that these cable cutting incidents are happening in increasing numbers.
In April of 2023, Taiwan said 27 cables had been cut during the five previous years. Mostly blamed on fishing vessels but that was the excuse at the time. Everybody's on a high alert now.
We know that the countries around the Baltic Sea aren't going to take any more shenanigans by Chinese or Russian ships for granted. NATO ships have already moved into the area to help out.
I'm still waiting for a report on the signals intelligence equipment and the numerous laptops that were found with Russian and Turkish keyboards on the Eagle S oil tanker. Hybrid warfare is becoming the norm. Claims of innocence and plausible deniability aren't going to work anymore.
Controversies on the sea are becoming the norm, instead of the exception. I hope I'm wrong about the Chinese cable cutter. But why would the engineers come up with it unless the Chinese government asked them to? Then, why not keep it a secret instead of trying to patent it?
New article has NATO divers testing sabotage protections for undersea cables. The exercise took place in November to see if the divers could get around new sensors designed to prevent sabotage.
They shared a video of the operation on YouTube.
The exercise was called Bold Machina 2024 in La Spezia, Italy. 13 nations participated.
NATO officials highlighted growing threats to cables by Russia last year, noting surveillance activity from Russian units specializing in undersea sabotage. But the barrier to entry for sabotage is not particularly high.
Russia has submarine units known to specialize in underwater sabotage, but cables have also been damaged by commercial vessels simply dragging their anchors along the sea floor.
Such damage has spurred British officials to create a new joint operation with 10 European countries throughout the Baltic Sea area, using artificial intelligence to monitor potential threats from ships.
Under sea cables are critical components of international telecommunications infrastructure and the global economy.
Around 745,000 miles of cables span global sea beds and help transmit 95% of international data, including around $10 trillion of financial transactions daily.
That's a really good reason for everyone concerned to work on cooperation between countries at risk, especially ones with shallow waters.
Like many have called for, the United Nations Laws of the Sea need to be updated for modern times and technology. Just needs to happen soon.
