1. Taiwan Stakes Everything on Low-Earth Orbit Satellites
An intriguing report emerged in Taiwanese media last May, stating that negotiations between the Taiwanese government and Starlink had effectively collapsed. Taiwan is among five regions in Asia—alongside North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, and China—where Starlink is unavailable. Despite Taiwan's desperate push to adopt low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, the talks fell through. While legal regulatory issues were a factor, Elon Musk's statement that "Taiwan is part of China" proved decisive. Complicating matters further were claims that the Chinese government pressured Musk not to provide Starlink services to Taiwan. In response, 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 is densely populated with limited land, so fixated on LEO satellites?

2. 'Shadows' Targeting Undersea Cables
In January 2025, an international undersea communication cable was damaged in 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 system on the day the cable was severed and subsequently sailed away toward South Korea. While a major disruption was avoided by rerouting traffic through backup networks, Taiwan took the incident very seriously. One month later, in February 2025, another undersea cable connecting the main island of Taiwan to the Penghu archipelago was damaged. Taiwan seized the Hong Tai 58, a cargo ship captained by a Chinese national. Prosecutors charged the captain with 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, with three incidents occurring in each of the two preceding years. While not all cable damage can be attributed to deliberate attacks, the situation changes when vessels linked to China repeatedly appear in waters near China.

3. The Scenario Taiwan Fears Most
The scenario Taiwan fears is clear: China disrupting internet and communication networks ahead of an invasion. Island nations are particularly vulnerable to undersea cable damage. In fact, on the Matsu Islands—which are small, have few cables, and are located just tens of kilometers from the Chinese mainland—two undersea cables were damaged in succession in February 2023, leaving residents without internet for weeks. Online banking came to a halt, and credit card payment terminals stopped working. 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 were responsible for damaging the respective cables, but whether the acts were intentional was never confirmed.

4. Undersea Cables: The New Pressure Point of the 21st Century
The problem goes beyond just slow internet. Interbank settlements, 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 exploding, making the importance of undersea cables even greater. Yet, these cables are easy to attack and incredibly difficult to protect. Undersea cables are long, thin, and mostly privately owned. Because they are laid thousands of kilometers under the sea, monitoring them entirely is difficult. Even if a ship drags its anchor across one, it is hard to determine if it was an accident or a directed operation. This is why warships are rarely involved in such incidents; instead, merchant ships, fishing boats, and oil tankers appear. It is precisely this ambiguity that makes undersea cables a target for gray-zone warfare.

5. The Undersea War Has Already Begun
China is not the only country employing these tactics. Europe was once shaken by an incident involving Russia—or at least suspected to be Russia's doing. 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, the court of first instance dismissed the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction as the incident occurred outside territorial waters. Although the matter ended inconclusively, all involved nations suspected Russian involvement. Since then, Europe has begun to view the Baltic Sea as a de facto battlefield for undersea infrastructure. NATO has established a Baltic Sea surveillance mission, and the EU is discussing securing emergency repair vessels and strengthening monitoring systems for undersea cables. 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.

[Jim Risch / Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (at a hearing last April): More than 95% of global communication 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 following the hearing, the U.S. 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 treated merely as communication networks, but as national security assets, much like military bases or ports.

6. Who Is the Next Target?
South Korea also relies on undersea cables for most 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 semiconductor design, production, and research and development. This means the entire South Korean industry is heavily dependent on undersea cables. In the AI era, the volume of cross-border data is increasing exponentially. 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 fired, and financial and communication networks, as well as military command systems, could be shaken before a shot is heard. 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 focusing on undersea cables, and why we must watch the events in the Baltic Sea and the Taiwan Strait with great significance.

Reported by Kim Min-jung | Video by Park Woo-jin and Hwang Se-hoe | Video Editing by Kim Hye-ju | Design by Lee Soo-min | Assistance by Ryu Ji-soo and Seo Byeong-wook | Produced by SBS Digital News