A Chinese national has been sentenced to three years in prisonfor damaging an undersea cable connecting Taiwan\u2019s main island and the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n
The man, identified by his surname Wang, was the captain of the Togolese-registered vessel Hong Tai 58.<\/p>\n
The Tainan District Court\u2019s verdict on Thursday marks the first sentencing after reports in recent years of undersea cables around Taiwan being severed.<\/p>\n
Taipei has accused Beijing of sabotaging its cables, describing it as a \u201cgrey zone\u201d tactic to pressure the self-ruled island, which China claims as its territory.<\/p>\n
But China has denied its involvement, calling the incidents \u201ccommon maritime accidents\u201d that have been \u201cexaggerated\u201d by Taiwanese authorities.<\/p>\n
Undersea cables \u2013 insulated wires laid on the seabed \u2013 carry nearly all of the world\u2019s internet traffic.<\/p>\n
An estimated 150 to 200 faults occur across the world\u2019s undersea cable systems every year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee.<\/p>\n
Taiwan has 10 domestic and 14 international undersea cables.<\/p>\n
The damage to cables linking Taiwan to the Penghu islands \u201cseriously interferes with the government and society\u2019s operations\u201d, the court said in a statement about Thursday\u2019s sentencing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact is enormous, and the defendant\u2019s actions should be severely condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, Taiwan\u2019s coast guard spotted Hong Tai 58 anchored off the island\u2019s southern coast for several days and broadcasted warnings asking it to leave.<\/p>\n
Minutes after Hong Tai 58 departed the waters in the early hours of 25 February, the coast guard learned that an undersea cable in the area had been severed.<\/p>\n
Hong Tai 58 was escorted back to Taiwan for investigation, and its crew of eight Chinese nationals were detained.<\/p>\n
Mr Wang is the only one to face charges, and the remaining crew members have reportedly been sent back to China.<\/p>\n
While Mr Wang initially denied damaging the undersea cables, he said during his trial that he \u201cmight have broken the cable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Wang, who did not appoint a lawyer, told the court that the rough waters had made navigation tricky, and he instructed the crew to drop the anchor without knowing that the area contained undersea cables.<\/p>\n
However, prosecutors argued that he had intentionally damaged the cable, pointing to electronic charts on the ship clearly showing the cable\u2019s location.<\/p>\n
Hsu Shu Han, a prosecutor in the case, told BBC Chinese in May that the vessel was \u201chighly suspicious\u201d. It had only one cargo record in the past year and was in poor condition, \u201cbut they were still sailing that ship around the Taiwan Strait\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Hsu also said the ship had gone by multiple names, and that Mr Wang had deliberately concealed information about the vessel\u2019s owner, who has yet to be identified.<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard told the court that ships typically move in a circular motion around the anchor, but the Hong Tai 58 had dragged its anchor straight across the seabed.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the ship had sailed in a zigzag pattern around the cable.<\/p>\n
The damaged section of the cable also matched the ship\u2019s anchoring location and showed signs of being snagged by an external force.<\/p>\n
Between 2019 and 2023, there were 36 cases of undersea cables being damaged by external forces, according to Taiwan authorities.<\/p>\n
Taiwan has been increasingly wary of potential sabotage, especially from China. In January, it accused a Chinese-owned ship of damaging an undersea cable near its northern coast \u2013 claims that have been denied by the ship\u2019s owner,Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
Kuan Bi-ling, Taiwan\u2019s ocean affairs council minister, said that Hong Tai 58 was among the 52 vessels that Taiwan had been monitoring for suspicious activities.<\/p>\n
Such suspicions are not just surfacing in Taiwan: Last November, a Chinese carrier was accused of severing two fibre-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. But a Swedish probe earlier this year said it found no conclusive evidence to suggest this \u2013 though a separate investigation remains under way, said Reuters.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome scholars have said that World War III could begin with the cutting of undersea cables. I think that\u2019s quite realistic,\u201d Herming Chiueh, deputy minister of Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Digital Affairs, told BBC Chinese.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the Ministry\u2019s perspective, our job is to ensure timely reporting and response for these critical infrastructures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hsu said that Mr Wang\u2019s phone records showed no links to Chinese authorities, and there was no direct evidence proving that the crew had been acting under Chinese government orders.<\/p>\n
Tensions have ratcheted between Taiwan and China over the past year. Taiwanese President William Lai has adopted a tough stance against Beijing, calling it a \u201cforeign hostile force\u201d. Meanwhile, China has held regular drills around Taiwan to simulate a blockade of the island.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Chinese national has been sentenced to three years in prisonfor damaging an undersea cable connecting Taiwan\u2019s main island and the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait. The man, identified by his surname Wang, was the captain of the Togolese-registered vessel Hong Tai 58. The Tainan District Court\u2019s verdict on Thursday marks the first sentencing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}