Taiwan detains Chinese-crewed ship over suspected undersea cable damage - VIDEO
Taiwan's coast guard has detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew on Tuesday, investigating whether the vessel intentionally damaged an undersea internet cable.
The vessel suspected of damaging the cable connecting Taiwan to its outlying Penghu Islands carried a “flag of convenience” and was crewed by eight Chinese nationals, Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement, News.Az reports, citing CNN.
A “flag of convenience” vessel is one that flies the flag of a country other than the country of ownership.
The ship “Hong Tai,” registered in the West African nation of Togo with Chinese funding, had been lingering near the cable in waters off the southwestern coast of Taiwan since Saturday evening and did not respond to multiple broadcasts from Taiwan’s coast guard, the statement added.
Shortly after the ship dropped anchor in the early hours of Tuesday, Taiwan’s telecom company Chunghwa Telecom detected that the cable had been disconnected.
The coast guard said it intercepted and boarded the vessel, before escorting it back to a port in the city of Tainan for investigation.
Taiwanese authorities said they could not rule out the possibility of a Chinese “gray zone operation,” a coercive or subversive act that falls below the threshold of war.
“Whether it was an intentional act of sabotage or purely an accident needs to be further probed,” the coast guard said in the statement, adding that the matter is now under investigations by prosecutors “in accordance with national security-level guidance.”
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