An intriguing report emerged from Taiwanese media last May. It stated that negotiations between the Taiwanese government and Starlink had effectively collapsed. Taiwan is among the five regions in Asia—along with North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, and China—where Starlink is unavailable. Although Taiwan was desperate to introduce low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, the talks ultimately fell through. While legal regulations were a factor, Elon Musk’s remark that "Taiwan is part of China" proved decisive, and the situation grew more complex amid claims that the Chinese government pressured Musk not to provide Starlink services to Taiwan. Instead, the Taiwanese government is rushing to adopt OneWeb, a European LEO satellite network, and is continuing negotiations with Amazon. They have even set a goal to launch their own LEO communication satellites by 2027. Why is Taiwan, a high-tech internet society where over 99% of the population already uses 4G and 5G, and which has a small land area and high population density, so desperate for LEO satellites?

Let’s look at an incident that occurred in Taiwanese waters last year. In January 2025, an international undersea communication cable was damaged in the waters north of Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities suspected a cargo ship named Shun Xing 39. The vessel, which had been lingering in waters around Taiwan since December 2024, turned off its identification device on the day the cable was severed and subsequently sailed away toward South Korea. Although a major disruption was avoided by rerouting traffic through backup networks, Taiwan took the incident very seriously. One month later, in February 2025, an undersea cable connecting the main island of Taiwan to the Penghu Islands was damaged, and Taiwan seized a cargo ship named Hong Tai 58, which was captained by a Chinese national. Prosecutors indicted the captain on charges of intentionally damaging the undersea cable, and the court sentenced him to three years in prison. This was not an isolated incident. According to Taiwanese authorities, there were five undersea cable damage incidents in 2025 alone, and three incidents in each of the two preceding years. While not all cable damage is necessarily the result of intentional attacks, the situation changes when vessels connected to China repeatedly appear in waters close to China.

The scenario Taiwan fears is clear: China disrupting internet and communication networks prior to an invasion. Island nations are particularly vulnerable to the severance of undersea cables. In fact, in the Matsu Islands, which are located just tens of kilometers from the Chinese mainland and have a small size and limited number of cables, two undersea cables were damaged in succession in February 2023, leaving residents without internet for several weeks. Online banking stopped, and card payment terminals became inoperable. Some residents had to gather around telecommunications buildings to access public Wi-Fi, and internet speeds dropped to 5% of normal levels. Taiwanese authorities determined that a Chinese fishing boat and a Chinese cargo ship had each damaged a cable, but whether it was intentional was never confirmed.

The problem goes beyond just slow internet. Interbank payments, stock trading, international remittances, cloud servers, military intelligence, and AI training data all travel through these undersea cables. If these cables are cut, military command systems, government administrative networks, financial networks, and emergency communication systems could all collapse. As we enter the AI era, data traffic is surging, making undersea cables even more critical. However, these cables are easy to attack and very difficult to protect. Undersea cables are long, thin, and mostly privately owned. Because they are laid thousands of kilometers under the sea, it is difficult to monitor them entirely. Even if a ship drags its anchor across one, it is hard to determine if it was an accident or a directed operation. That is why these incidents always involve merchant ships, fishing boats, or oil tankers rather than warships. It is precisely this ambiguity that makes undersea cables a target for gray-zone warfare.

China is not the only country employing such tactics. Europe was once shaken by an incident involving, or at least presumed to be the work of, Russia. On December 25, 2024, five undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, including the EstLink 2 power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, were severed simultaneously. Investigations revealed that the oil tanker Eagle S, linked to Russia’s "shadow fleet," had dragged its anchor for nearly 90 kilometers, and Finnish prosecutors indicted three people, including the captain. However, a first-instance court dismissed the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction because the incident occurred outside territorial waters. Although it ended inconclusively, all involved countries suspected Russian involvement. Since then, Europe has effectively begun to view the Baltic Sea as a battlefield for undersea infrastructure. NATO has established a Baltic Sea surveillance mission, and the EU is discussing securing emergency repair vessels for undersea cables and strengthening surveillance systems. The U.S. Congress is also examining the issue of undersea cable damage, looking into both Chinese equipment and the possibility of Russian-style sabotage.

[Interview: Jim Risch, Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (at a hearing last April): "More than 95% of global communications traffic travels through undersea cables. Russia has developed not only advanced undersea warfare capabilities but also low-tech means that produce the same effect as dragging an anchor. To end undersea sabotage, we must clearly hold those responsible when such incidents occur."]

Immediately after the hearing, the U.S. actually tightened regulations on undersea cables containing Chinese equipment and is pushing for legislation to protect undersea cables of the U.S. and its allies, as well as to support the construction of new cables that reduce reliance on Chinese equipment. Undersea cables are no longer being treated merely as communication networks, but as national security assets, much like military bases and ports.

This is not just a problem for Europe and Taiwan. South Korea also relies on undersea cables for the vast majority of its international financial transactions, cloud services, and AI data movement. In particular, as the world’s largest exporter of memory semiconductors, South Korea exchanges massive amounts of data in real-time with companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan during the design, production, and R&D processes of semiconductors. This means the entire South Korean industry has a high dependency on undersea cables. In the AI era, the volume of cross-border data is exploding. If data is the new oil, undersea cables are the pipelines that transport it. War no longer begins only on the front lines. The internet could be cut before a missile is launched, and financial, communication, and military command systems could be shaken before a single shot is fired. The first scene of a war may not be a massive explosion, but a connection failure and the collapse of daily life. This is why the world is now paying attention to cables under the sea, and why we must watch the events in the Baltic Sea and the Taiwan Strait with great significance.

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▶ Refer to SBS News

※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.