Sabotage
Submarine Cable
Hong Tai 58 — intentional Taiwan–Penghu No. 3 cable severance
25 February 2025
Taiwan Strait, northwest of Jiangjun Fishing Harbor, Taiwan
Map
23.3000, 119.9800
What happened
The Togo-flagged, Chinese-crewed cargo ship Hong Tai 58 dragged its anchor across the Taiwan–Penghu No. 3 submarine communications cable and severed it northwest of Jiangjun Fishing Harbor. Taiwan's coast guard intercepted the vessel and referred the case for prosecution. A Taiwanese court later found that the Chinese captain intentionally damaged the cable and sentenced him to three years in prison. Chunghwa Telecom activated a backup cable, preventing a service outage in Penghu. The conviction establishes intentional cable damage by the captain, but does not by itself prove Chinese state direction. This documented 2025 case corrects the supplied claim that comparable Penghu anchor-dragging incidents occurred in 2024.
When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.
- Evidence
- Documented
- Confidence
- High
- Infrastructure
- Submarine Cable
- Current temperature
- Loading…
- Latitude
- 23.3000°
- Longitude
- 119.9800°
Attribution
Attributed to Hong Tai 58's Chinese captain
A Taiwanese court convicted the captain of intentionally damaging the cable and sentenced him to three years. The judgment did not establish that China's government directed the act.
Sources
- Taiwan Coast Guard rejects claims over Hong Tai 58 and confirms cable-damage convictionTaiwan Coast Guard Administration · Incident reporting
- Taiwan is investigating a Chinese-crewed ship believed to have severed an undersea cableAssociated Press · Contemporaneous interception and no-outage reporting