Taiwanese telecommunications company Chunghwa Telecom and the Taiwan Coast Guard reported last Saturday, January 4, that the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System, which directly connects Taiwan to the U.S. East Coast, Japan, South Korea, and China, has been damaged by a Cameroon-flagged freighter named Shunxing39. However, although the ship is registered in the West African country, Taiwanese officials say that the cargo ship is owned by Jie Yang Trading Limited—a Hong Kong-registered company—and lists Guo Wenjie, a mainland Chinese citizen, as its sole director, according to a Financial Times report.
Shungxing39’s tracking data showed that it dragged its anchor at the site of damage to the cable and that it has also been operating close to Taiwan’s northern waters since December. “This is another case of a very worrying global trend of sabotage against subsea cables,” said a senior Taiwanese national security official. “The ships that are involved in these incidents are typically rundown vessels that have little above-the-board business. This one, too, is in very bad shape. It is similar to the ships that are part of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet.’” He also suggested that the track the suspected ship took means that this was a deliberate act and not an accident.
