A team of engineers from Lishui University, located in the coastal Zhejiang province in China, applied for a patent for a “dragging type submarine cable cutting device” in 2020. According to Newsweek, which reviewed the documents, the patent application is based on another device developed in the late 2000s by marine engineers the State Oceanic Administration of China (SOA) in the South China Sea described as an “ocean towing type cutting device.” However, records reveal that both applications were either turned down or retracted, although no reason was given for these actions.
This revelation comes after several months of reports regarding undersea cable damage incidents, suspected to have been committed by vessels connected to China and Russia. The latest cable damage incident, reported during the first week of January, involved the Chinese freighter Shunxing39 cutting through the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System that directly connects Taiwan to the U.S. West Coast, Japan, South Korea, and China.
“With the development of science and technology, more and more submarine cables and communication cables are laid on the seabed of all parts of the world and the cables need to be cut off in some emergency situations,” the Lishui University authors wrote in their patent application. “The traditional cutting method needs first to detect the position of the cables, then excavate and salvage them for cutting. This process is complex, a lot of expensive equipment is needed, and the cost is too high. There is a need for a fast, low-cost cutting apparatus for submarine cables to accomplish this task.” On the other hand, the rationale for the SOA’s patent application is the need to destroy illegal cables off China.
Nearly 95% of global communication goes through undersea cable, making this infrastructure crucial to how our society operates today. More than just voice communications, these submarine wires also carry data and are the physical embodiment of the World Wide Web. Essentially, it’s the internet. Some undersea cables also carry power, which could affect a country’s national grid.
The mere existence of these patent applications is troubling, said one Norwegian expert. They said that these tools worked randomly at best and could damage other useful cables. Benjamin Schmitt of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy also told Newsweek, “The fact that there are multiple technical patents that Chinese engineers applied for to conduct such a subsea cable cutting operation only adds to the suspicion that Beijing may have not only the motivation but also is actively developing technical options for completing these sort of subsea warfare operations in the future.”
This capability has certainly got Taiwan worried, especially as it’s an island that relies on these undersea cables to communicate with the rest of the world. This is especially true as these cable-cutting incidents happen in international waters and are conducted by purportedly civilian ships with muddy registration and ownership records. While work on naval drones to monitor and protect undersea cables is underway, it would likely take years, if not decades, to be able to fully deploy a system such as this to protect all submarine cables.
