Undersea cables lie on the seabed deep beneath the waves, making it difficult to detect network sabotage until after the fact. It is therefore easy for foreign governments, such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 中華人民共和國), to argue that one of their nations’ vessels causing the severance of an undersea cable is an accident. In a recent case, the perpetrator cited an ‘accident’ as the reason for cutting an undersea cable around Taiwan for the fourth time this year. However, in a major shift regarding Taiwan’s national security, on June 12, a Chinese national—who was the captain of a Togolese-registered vessel, Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58)—was sentenced to prison by Taiwanese authorities for severing the Taiwan-Penghu No.3 cable. For the first time, the Taiwanese government has taken serious action to heavily penalize someone who was responsible for endangering Taiwan’s undersea cables—hardware that is now designated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MoDA, 數位發展部) as “critical infrastructure.”Read More
A Plan B for PRC Cable-Cutting: Taiwan’s Satellite Communications
