Taiwan's coast guard is on high alert after two foreign-registered cargo ships, the Bao Shun and the Cheng Shun, mysteriously turned off their tracking systems on Friday. The coast guard warns that this could be a deliberate test of Taiwan’s radar capabilities. Ray Powell, director of the Sealight Initiative at Stanford University, tells TaiwanPlus what these ships might be up to.
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00:00Is there anything specifically about the Baoshun that is catching your attention or anything that Taiwan should be concerned about?
00:07Initially got my attention because the Taiwan Coast Guard said that it drove it away
00:13following the other
00:14cable sabotage
00:16event and
00:17Because it was concerned about cables and so and looking at the pattern around the northern tip of Taiwan
00:23It doesn't seem to be you know
00:26Doing things that cargo ships should be doing. A cargo ship's life
00:30just by the very nature of what a cargo ship is should be proceeding from port to port and
00:37Generally as you know straight a line as possible
00:39And so the Baoshun as the deeper I looked at it
00:43It never seemed to have gone anywhere, right?
00:46And so that's I mean that's immediately of concern because then what is it doing for its owner if its owner it claims to be
00:52A cargo company then why is it there?
00:55Previously Taiwan has said that there's at least 50 or so suspicious ships operating around the country
01:00But what do you think they're trying to accomplish?
01:03Taiwan does seem to have a fair number of these ships that come into its space a lot of them using what we call flags
01:10Of convenience, right? So flags from countries that don't
01:15Have very high standards for who they give flags to or who you know
01:20They let register and of course, you know Mongolia is an especially amusing example because Mongolia is landlocked
01:27It has there is no coastline for Mongolia
01:29So why is it hanging around off the coast of Taiwan and you know cable sabotage is certainly a possibility
01:36Given the places that it's been
01:39You know intelligence collection is a possibility. You need a ship that's large enough to actually cause damage, right?
01:45So you need a ship that when that bulk tugs on that cable, it's going to do damage to the cable
01:52So if the ship is too small, you know
01:55The ship may be successful in anchoring on the cable, but the cable itself won't be damaged
02:00So if that's the goal then a cargo ship is a is a convenient
02:04Way to do that in the long run. Would you say that this is part of a gray zone strategy to wear down?
02:10Taiwan or is this a new kind of threat?
02:13If it is looking for cables, of course, it's a threat to Taiwan's
02:18resilience against this kind of you know
02:22Harassment against it being cut off from other countries or from its outlying islands
02:28Overall, you know the the fact that they're that you know
02:31If it is indeed sort of operating under the direction of a state actor like China or Beijing
02:38Then the threat is that it is part of a larger
02:42Series of activities that is intended to harass Taiwan into
02:47perhaps
02:48Conceding things that you would rather that I help Taiwan not concede over time, right?
02:53Parts of its sovereignty parts of its you know
02:56Just things that you over a long period of time whittle away at at Taiwan's in at Taiwan's sovereignty
03:02And so, you know, that's that's what you're worried about