CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand \u2014 Taiwanese authorities this month charged the Chinese captain of the cargo vessel Hong Tai 58 for damaging an underwater communications cable connecting Taiwan to the Penghu Islands near the Chinese coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legal move is a reminder that sabotage of vital seabed cables, which is notoriously difficult to prove, has firmly entered the canon of gray-zone tactics meant to find weak spots in an adversary\u2019s defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taiwan\u2019s coast guard had detained Hong Tai 58, a Togolese-flagged cargo vessel crewed by Chinese sailors, in late February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A similar incident occurred north of Taiwan in January, but on that occasion a Hong Kong-owned commercial vessel was fingered as the culprit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taiwan has reported five cases of seabed cable damage this year already, compared with just three each in 2023 and 2024. Taiwan\u2019s coast guard has created a blacklist of nearly 100 suspicious China-linked ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite Beijing\u2019s denials, some observers believe such nefarious actions are part of China\u2019s coercive behavior towards Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington earlier this month, for example, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) blasted China\u2019s \u201creckless, coercive and aggressive activities,\u201d singling out sabotage of undersea cables as a \u201cparticularly alarming tactic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same hearing, U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), acknowledged attempts to sabotage undersea internet cables, particularly around Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wew weeks after Taiwan seized Hong Tai 58, media revealed that the state-owned China Ship Scientific Research Center had patented a deep-sea device \u201ccapable of severing the world\u2019s most fortified underwater communication or power lines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of China\u2019s priorities in major hostilities against Taiwan \u2013 such as a naval blockade or full-blown invasion \u2013 would be to isolate the island and interfere with civilian and military communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his testimony to U.S. lawmakers, Paparo proposed two countermeasures against Chinese sabotage of cables. The first is to penetrate the targeting chain through intelligence gathering, and then showing up with forces \u201cin the locations where they would be otherwise cutting those cables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, Paparo added, is resilience. This encompasses redundant communication networks to ensure the information environment continues unabated, as well as the proliferation of multiple satellite constellations in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, naval tech companies are sensing a new market for their equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andy Keough, managing director of Saab Australia, said the company is well positioned to support governments in defending underwater infrastructure through its countermine portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur products play a crucial role in mine countermeasure solutions as well as the protection of critical undersea infrastructure, including pipelines and subsea cables, across the globe,\u201d Keough said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs for short, can monitor infrastructure, and seabed sensors can provide real-time maritime domain awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Developing the ability to quickly repair infrastructure or reroute communications is also important. For example, Saab\u2019s electric Work-Class Remote Operated Vehicle can operate at depths of 5,500m and is controlled via satellite link. For inspections and repairs, the company\u2019s Sabertooth AUV can act as a persistent underwater resident with the aid of a subsea docking station, said Keough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, the company Exail won a French military contract to design an AUV that can dive as deep as 6,000m to counteract seabed warfare. To be delivered in 2027, these vehicles have the ability to reprogram themselves mid-mission. For example, if one detected something suspicious, it could move into observation mode to watch what a given target is doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thales Australia hopes to attract new customers with its sensing equipment. Gavin Henry, of the company\u2019s undersea warfare unit, said Thales\u2019 Blue Sentry technology, with its thin-line towed array, can help find potential threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis system employs a network of sophisticated sensors capable of detecting and tracking both surface and underwater contacts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ross Babbage, CEO of Strategic Forum in Australia, argues the undersea threat to key infrastructure requires a layered, whole-of-nation approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn conjunction with automatic identification systems on ships, you can make sure people are following the correct channels and their prescribed route, because they\u2019re only going to do these things if they deviate from their normal route,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there are bell ringers there to then target an asset to go and have a look.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nations like Australia need to conduct surveillance and look for anomalies, Babbage said. \u201cIf you can do that, then you can pinpoint those anomalies and start to put the heat on them before they do it, or certainly capture them after they\u2019ve done it, as they\u2019ve done in Europe, and deal with it on a diplomatic basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Australian Defense Department spokesperson told Defense News the military has a range of capabilities to monitor and respond to threats to undersea communication cables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Australian Defence Force works with other agencies specializing in cybersecurity to protect infrastructure, though much of that information is classified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwan has reported five cases of seabed cable damage this year already, compared with just three each in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":119721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":45,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,160,11,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3492],"class_list":["post-70281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news-roundup","category-global","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QB42WYDSQFDPHGYEBJOXNZM5XY","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/asia-pacific\/2025\/04\/25\/with-indo-pacific-undersea-cables-at-risk-companies-tout-their-tech\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n