Taiwan has charged a Chinese ship captain with intentionally damaging subsea cables off the island earlier this year. Prosecutors charged the man, named only as Wang, over an incident in February. The decision to charge him comes amid a rise in subsea malfunctions in Taiwan, reports Data Center Dynamics.
The Chinese-crewed Hong Tai 58 ship, registered to Togo, was detained by Taiwanese authorities after suspicions that the ship had dropped an anchor near an undersea cable off southwestern Taiwan. Wang has said he’s innocent.
Taiwan officials stated he refused to provide details of the ship’s owner. The seven other Chinese nationals detained at the same time as Wang have not been charged and will be sent back to China, according to prosecutors, according to Data Center Dynamics.
So far this year, Taiwan has reported five subsea cable malfunctions, up from the three malfunctions in 2023 and 2024. Tensions between China and Taiwan, a territory that China claims as its own, have heightened in recent years. The Taiwanese government rejects China’s sovereignty claims over the region. It argues that the subsea cable attacks caused by China are designed to pressure the area without direct confrontation. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office has previously described the subsea cable incident as a “common maritime accident.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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