China has unveiled a new kind of deep-sea cable cutter. While reports says the device is intended for research, many are skeptical of China’s intentions citing recent cables cut around Taiwan. For more on this, Jaime Ocon spoke to Jonathan Walberg, the associate director of Taiwan Security Monitor, an open-source research initiative at George Mason University.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So, what can you tell us about this new kind of cable cutter that China has reportedly
00:05unveiled?
00:06So, one of the important things to note is that this is actually different than a lot
00:09of the other methods that they've used for cable sabotage in the past.
00:12And so, up until this point, what China's been doing and what everyone's been doing
00:15for undersea cable sabotage is using a sort of towed anchor that drags behind a ship that's
00:20on the surface.
00:22And it looks like an anchor, it kind of goes behind and as the ship crosses the cable,
00:26it hits it and it drags it and it's what sabotages it.
00:30What's different with this is it's actually at a different depth and this is being attached
00:34to a submersible device, it's on a submarine, and it's almost like a chainsaw just attached
00:38to a submarine.
00:40So, this new technology can work at up to 4,000 meters, which is pretty significant
00:45because what it means is that it allows operation further away from the shore.
00:50So in gaining this kind of capability, do you think that we're going to see a more organized
00:54or concerted effort from China to find and sabotage Taiwan's undersea cables?
00:59The pattern of incidents here really suggests a deliberate effort.
01:02And also, Chinese state media has been talking all about this and showing the abilities.
01:06And they're not just talking about the abilities for civilian use, they're talking about its
01:10abilities to disrupt cables.
01:13Since 2023, Taiwan's experienced numerous undersea cable disruptions.
01:16And at Taiwan Security Monitor, the research group that I've been working with, we've been
01:20collecting data and tracking incidents of this cable sabotage and actually locating
01:24where this is all taking place.
01:25And prior to this, a lot of the stuff's taken place in shallow waters closer to the landing
01:29stations.
01:30And with the submarine capabilities, we're probably going to see a lot of these newer
01:33incidents coming in deeper waters.
01:35And the ocean's a pretty big place, even if it's just the Taiwan Strait.
01:39And so, what's difficult is it's not happening one or two kilometers away.
01:42It's often happening a little bit further out.
01:44And the further out you get, the more difficult it becomes to see that just because you're
01:48watching from a very broad view.
01:50So aside from deploying more ships and being more vigilant, what else can Taiwan do to
01:55combat these gray zone operations?
01:58And so when there's an incident, be the first party to produce information on it, be the
02:01first party to send out articles, to have interviews, to have photos of the ships.
02:06Because when you allow China to do this, you're giving them the ability to start the story.
02:11And it really makes Taiwan look like the boy who cried wolf.
02:14Another thing that it does is it gives China more credibility when it takes it away from
02:17Taiwan.
02:18And so, especially when it comes to this narrative warfare, it's really important for Taiwan
02:23to be proactive in getting the information and putting it out there before China is able
02:27to create their web.