Taiwanese Officials Blame Ships from China for Cutting Internet Cables

For almost a month, Matsu Islands' residents rely on two submarine internet cables leading to Taiwan's main island. Officials blamed two ships that came from China for cutting the cables that caused the outage.

Kinmen - The Taiwanese Island With Strong Links To China — LIEYU, TAIWAN - FEBRUARY 04: An Island that lies inside Taiwan's territory is seen with the Chinese city of Xiamen in the background on February 04, 2021 off the coast of Lieyu, an outlying island of Kinmen that is the closest point between Taiwan and China. Kinmen, an island in the Taiwan strait that is part of Taiwan's territory, is so close to China that the deep-water port of Xiamen, one of China's biggest, lies less than three miles away across the water. It is one of the few areas of Taiwan that mainland Chinese tourists can visit without visas or permits, and has deep ties with the adjacent Fujian province of China; locals have seen a boost to their incomes from Chinese tourism in pre-pandemic times. Wartime anti-tank barricades litter the beach and the island also features the Zhaishan tunnel, which Taiwanese forces still reserve the right to use in wartime and for military exercises. An Rong Xu/Getty Images

Cable Breakage

14,000 residents of Taiwan's Matsu Islands struggle to find good internet, pay electricity bills, make a doctor's appointment, or receive a package. Associated Press reported that the National Communications Communication blamed two Chinese ships for causing the outage.

On February 2nd, a Chinese fishing vessel caused the outage of the first cable, some 50 kilometers out at sea. Six days later after that incident, a Chinese cargo ship cut the second cable. This caused the islanders to use limited internet temporarily through microwave radio transmission.

Chunghwa Telecom set this up near Taipei to provide a backup signal for online banking and other basic services for the residents. Users would have to wait for hours to send a text and could experience sudden call drops, and videos that are unwatchable. Aside from daily living, the internet outage has huge implications for national security.

For the past five years, The Washington Post reported that Taiwan experienced 27 times of cable cutting, but the authorities do not know the cause of this or which vessels hailed from most of the time. Cables are covered with steel armor and placed in less deep waters.

Despite the protection, it can easily get cut by ships and fishing boats' anchors, steel nets, or other equipment. Asia Pacific Network Information Centre Chief Scientist believed that this level of breakage is highly unusual for a cable, both for the deep and shallow waters of the strait.

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Blaming China

China is suspected to have cut the cables deliberately as a part of its efforts to harass the self-ruled islands that it considers part of its territory. Matsu is one of Taiwan's outlying islands closer to neighboring China. Several efforts were made by Chinese authorities to intimidate the island's democratic government.

However, the Taiwanese government stopped short of calling it a delivery act as they do not have direct evidence to show that the two ships from China were responsible for this incident. Instead, VOA reported that the NCC would put a data-gathering system in place to prevent cable-cutting incidents in the future.

Institute for National Defense and Security Research Defense Expert Su Tzu-yun stated, "We can't rule out that China destroyed these on purpose. Taiwan needs to invest more resources in repairing and protecting the cables."

Democratic Progressive Party Local Chapter Head believes that this can be seen as a warning signal. He wonders what could happen if the 14 international undersea cables were damaged, as he sees the possibility that it could also happen to the whole of Taiwan.