Since underwater cables are detached from Europe and Taiwan, proof of sabotage is difficult | Spying news

Taipei, Taiwan – When Taiwan seized a Chinese cargo ship, suspected of deliberate rupture of one of the underwater telecommunications cables last month, authorities promised to “make every effort to clarify the truth” of what had happened.

The Taiwan Coast Guard administration said it could not rule out the possibility that China had deployed Togo-Flag Hong Tai 58 as part of a “gray area”.

The last cases of damage to underwater cables around the island and in Europe suggest that proving sabotage, even less holding someone responsible, may not be an easy task.

Since 2023 there are at least 11 cases of underwater damage from the cable around Taiwan and at least 11 such incidents in Baltic SeaAccording to Taiwanese and European authorities.

Taiwanese and European authorities have identified China or Russia, allies who share an increasingly overwhelmed relationship with the West and its partners – as the likely culprits in a number of incidents, although they have attributed several other natural reasons.

In January, NATO launches the Baltic Sentry To enhance the monitoring of suspicious activities from ships in the Baltic Sea.

But so far, the authorities have not announced specific concessions against Beijing or Moscow, although the European Commission has revealed a roadmap calling for the implementation of sanctions and diplomatic measures against unnamed “hostile participants and the” Senchev Fleet “.

Authorities have also not yet raised criminals or companies, although they are detaining a number of ships and crews, including Hong Tai 58, which was seized near the outside islands of Taiwan on February 25th.

Beijing and Moscow denied any involvement in the sabotage of underwater cables.

“This is about the whole gray area. It's about being clear, “Ray Powell, director of Stanford's Sea Light project, was following Chinese marine activities, Al Jazeera told Al Jazee.

“You just have to be negative enough, so even though everyone knows that you are, they cannot prove that you are.”

Underwater cables – which cross the globe, carrying 99 percent of intercontinental digital communications trafficking – regularly suffered damage due to age, environmental changes and marine activities such as fishing.

Cable errors are so common-networking between 100 and 200 each year, according to the telecommunications data provider for the data provider-this practice in the industry is to build underwater networks with built-in abbreviations to ensure constant connectivity if a cable breaks down.

These characteristics also make submarine cables a major goal for a “hybrid war” or “gray zone activities”-a low-quality forced actions that are often opaque and favorable for plausible denial-according to security analysts.

“Most cable breaks are the result of accidents … Anchors can be involuntarily dropped into rough seas or left longer than intended. Cables can also break when fishing nets are dragged to the wrong place. Moreover, a ship may not realize that it has broken a cable, “said Kevin Fraser, an associate of Tarbel in the Non -Profit Act, before Al Jazeera.

“The simplest way for a bad actor to break the cable is to look like one of the accidents that usually cause such breaks. The anchors that drag through the cable is one such reason. “

Barbara Keleman, an associate director in London and Singapore -based intelligence company Dragonfly, said the rating of the latest cable collapses includes signs of sabotage, despite the relatively large number of failures every year in non -compliant circumstances.

“If you just look at the data, for example, how often these incidents occur and how many cables are suddenly damaged at the same time and you include the proximity of some of these ships near these cables, you have a statistical deviation that suggests that something else is happening,” Keleman told Al Jazeera.

The incident involving Hong Tai 58 came just weeks after the Taiwanese authorities briefly detained a flag of Cameroun Shun Son 39, on the suspicion of dragging its anchor on part of the Trans-Pacific Express Cable that connects Taiwan to the west coast of the United States.

Coast security officers said they could not board the ship due to bad weather and the ship sails to South Korea.

The list of industrial publication Lloyd said Chinese free has turned on its automatic identification system (AIS) on and off and excludes three separate identities.

The implementation of the law in the sea is difficult to not only for practical reasons but also for legal reasons, including contradictory actions for jurisdiction.

According to the Convention of the United Nations on the sea of ​​the sea, ships floating in international waters are usually subject to the legitimate jurisdiction of the country under whose flag they are registered.

Within the territorial waters of the state, designated as 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the shore, the ships are subject to the jurisdiction of this country.

However, authorities may exercise a “universal jurisdiction” over a ship outside their territorial waters under a limited number of circumstances, including cases of piracy, “terrorism” and slavery.

Some countries also claim jurisdiction in international waters when a citizen is a victim or perpetrator of a crime.

Even when authorities can have jurisdiction and evidence, it may be difficult to make a legal case for deliberate sabotage, Keleman said Dragonfly.

“If the country's investigators or intelligence services can benefit from communication that clearly shows the ship captain to do so, they may have a dispute and may try to chase,” she said.

“I suspect this will be quite difficult.”

The investigation by the European authorities of the Chinese Yi Peng 3 after tearing two underwater telecommunications cables in November stressed the challenges of responding to suspected sabotage.

AIS data shows that Yi Peng 3 slows down near the two cables – which connect Finland with Germany, and Sweden with Lithuania – about the time of tearing.

Sonari images of the nearby seabed have shown evidence that the ship has dragged its anchor of 160 km (99 miles).

Despite the evidence, European investigators soon hit a diplomatic wall because the ship flew under the banner of China and was anchored in international waters.

Beijing has announced that it will Investigate the incident Although it allows representatives of Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark to board the ship as “observers”.

At the end of December, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China said the owner of Yi Peng 3 decided to resume his voyage, given the physical and mental health of the crew and after a “complete assessment and consultation” with the European authorities.

The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration and its Stockholm Embassy did not respond to Al Jazeera's requests for comment.

Sweden Minister Maria Malmer Stregard, at the time, criticized Beijing for not allowing investigators to investigate.

“Our request from the Swedish prosecutors, together with the police and others, may take certain investigative measures within the investigation of the board remains. We are clear with China on this issue, “Stangard said.

But even if European investigators were dissatisfied, there was not much more to do to cause an international incident, said Jens Wenzel, a Danish defense analyst at Nordic Defense Analysis.

“In international waters it is quite difficult without the consent of the main, owner/operator or state of the flag. In the territorial waters, the jurisdiction of the coastal state begins, allowing inspection if there is any suspicion of illegal activity, “Venzel told Al Jazeera.

“In the case of YI Peng 3, it anchored just outside the Danish (territorial waters), giving both the coastal states Denmark and in Sweden, using force to cross the board and without adequate legislation.”

In the months since Yi Peng 3 left Europe, cable damage in the Baltic Sea continued, even when NATO promised to strengthen its protection in the region.

These include an incident on December 25 Including the eagle sSuspect Russian oil tanker flying the flag of Cook Islands.

The ship drags its anchor 100 km (62 miles), damaging underwater cables in Finland, according to Finnish authorities.

Unlike other cases, the Finnish authorities directed the ship into their territorial waters and detained it.

Currently, three crew members are under a ban on travel and a criminal investigation is ongoing, although the eagle itself was allowed to leave Finland last month.

Herman Lungberg, a Finnish lawyer representing the owners of the Eagle S, told Al Jazeera that the accusations were “nonsense”, and said the Finnish police had “searched the ship out and out for nine weeks and did not find anything”.

With US President Donald Trump, who insists on ending Russia's war in Ukraine, Finland's intelligence service warned last week that the end of the conflict would release resources for Russia and its proxies to carry out sabotage acts.

“The use of proxy operators from different countries has recently become a more prominent aspect of both intelligence and a broader influencing scenario. Sabotage operations in Europe related to the Russian military intelligence service GRU are one example of this, “a statement from the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service said.

“Using intermediaries, Russia strives to cover its traces. Russian sabotage operations aim to influence public opinion and the sense of public safety and to overwhelm the authorities in the target countries. “

The Russian Embassy in Stockholm did not respond to a request for comment.

Sea Light Powell said sabotage acts against underwater cables are likely to continue.

“It seems to be something like a recent trend and China and Russia and others will do so because they will essentially calculate that the answer will not be bad enough,” he said.

“Then the question comes down, how does the international community react? How does Taiwan react? What happened to China or Russia, which has not yet sent the announcement that it is so intolerable that it is not worth doing again? “