A ship’s captain from China has been sentenced to three years in prison in Taiwan after his vessel damaged an undersea cable.

The case is thought to be the first prosecution relating to the severing of cables in the seas around Taiwan.

According to a BBC report, the man, identified only by his surname Wang, was captain of the Hong Tai 58, a ship registered in Togo.

He was arrested in February and accused of damaging a cable connecting Taiwan to the Penghu Islands, off the coast of China on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

According to Submarine Cable Map, two cables, TPKM2 and TPKM3, run across the strait in the area, though the name of the damaged cable has not been reported.

Anchor dragged across the cable

The court heard that the Hong Tai 58 was anchored off Taiwan’s southern coast for several days and was asked to leave the area by the coastguard.

It departed on February 25, and within minutes, the coastguard learned that the cable had been severed. The Hong Tai was escorted back to Taiwan, and its eight-person Chinese crew was detained.

Wang was the only crew member to face charges, with the rest sent back to China

During his trial, Wang said he "might have broken the cable,” the BBC reports. He initially denied causing any damage, but then said the sea conditions made it difficult to navigate, and that his ship dropped anchor without knowing there was a cable in the area.

Prosecutors argued he acted intentionally. Speaking to the BBC earlier this year, Hsu Shu Han, one of the prosecutors on the case, said the ship only had one cargo record for the year and was in poor condition. It has also gone under several different names, meaning the owner has yet to be identified.

Taiwan’s Coastguard told the court that the Hong Tai 58 dragged its anchor directly over the seabed where the cable was located, moving in a straight line rather than the usual circular pattern a ship would take when it drops anchor.

The coastguard monitored the ship moving in a zig-zag pattern around the cable.

The district court in southern Taiwan jailed Wang for three years for violating the country’s Telecommunications Management Act.

Grey zone tactics

Severing subsea cables is often cited as a “grey zone” tactic deployed by countries such as China and Russia, with the aim of disrupting their enemies in the West. Between 2019-2023, Taiwan reported 36 cases of cables being damaged in its waters, and the government has previously blamed China for some of these incidents.

It should be noted, however, that many cases of subsea cable damage are entirely accidental.

In January, it was reported that subsea cable damage in the Baltic Sea, which saw four cables severed in the space of a week in December, was likely the result of maritime accidents, not Russian sabotage, according to several US and European intelligence officials. This was despite the blame initially being laid at the door of Moscow.