On November 18th, two subsea cables, one connecting Lithuania and Sweden, and another connecting Finland and Germany, were severed and destroyed. According to NBC News, Lithuania, Sweden, and Germany all launched investigations into the incident after a Chinese cargo ship, the Yi Peng 3 was spotted crossing over both cables in the Baltic Sea after leaving a Russian port around the same time that the cables stopped working. The current suspicion is that the Yi Peng 3 cut the cables by dragging their anchor along the sea bed.
These cables are very important to communication and services around the world. NPR’s Berlin correspondent said in an interview that, “Over 90% of the world’s data traffic runs overseas cables like these…and this means someone is trying to destroy the connectivity of our societies.” On top of that, the Yi Peng 3 is not responding to attempts to contact the ship for comment on the situation as well as a similar incident happening around a year ago where a Chinese ship cut and severed underwater cables that connected different countries. Although the action was initially ruled as incidental, the timing of both of these cable severages’ seems highly suspicious.
According to npr.org, the Defense Minister of Germany called it an act of sabotage with damning evidence that proved that the Chinese ship was most likely the culprit against the severaging of the subsea cables. The ship is now sitting in a port in Denmark as it awaits further investigation into the incident.
Additionally, fears that China is working in cahoots with Russia have been brought up all across social media and in government buildings in different countries affected by the cables being cut. This is due to global tensions and investigators are looking into the possible connection, however no conclusive evidence and findings have been brought to the knowledge of the public as of late.
The owner of the company that owns the Yi Peng 3 has been cooperating with the investigation and countries involved have been in meetings to discuss where to go next with the investigation. More is expected to come from the investigation in the upcoming days and weeks.
