China ‘cuts internet off Taiwan islands in latest bullying tactic to force reunification’

China has been accused of cutting off internet access to one of Taiwan’s outlying islands as part of its latest intimidation tactic to force reunification.

Some people living in Matsu, near neighboring China, had to struggle to pay electricity bills, make a doctor’s appointment or receive a package.

Matsu’s 14,000 residents rely on two undersea Internet cables that lead to the main island of Taiwan.

The National Communications Commission (NCC), citing the island’s telecommunications service, blamed two Chinese ships for cutting the cables.

He said a Chinese fishing boat is suspected of cutting the first cable some 50 kilometers (31 miles) out to sea. Six days later, on February 8, a Chinese freighter cut off the second, NCC said.

The Taiwanese government stopped short of calling it a deliberate act on the part of Beijing, and there was no direct evidence to show that the Chinese ships were responsible.

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shown, Russia has made the removal of Internet infrastructure one of the key parts of its strategy.

Some experts suspect that China may have deliberately cut the cables as part of its harassment of the self-governing island it considers part of its territory, to be forcibly reunified if necessary.

China regularly sends fighter jets and navy ships to Taiwan as part of its tactics to intimidate the island’s democratic government. Concerns about China’s invasion and Taiwan’s readiness to resist it have grown since the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the islanders were forced to connect to a limited internet via microwave radio transmission, a more mature technology, as a backup.

This meant that you would sometimes have to wait hours to send a text, calls would drop, and videos would not play.

‘Many tourists would cancel their reservation because there is no internet. Today, the Internet plays a very important role in people’s lives,” said Chen, who lives in Beigan, one of Matsu’s main residential islands.

The loss of Internet cables has also had huge implications for national security.

The cables had been cut 27 times in the past five years, but it was not clear which country the ships came from, according to data from Chunghwa Telecom.

Taiwan’s coast guard chased the fishing boat that cut the first cable on Feb. 2 but returned to Chinese waters, according to an official who was briefed on the incident and was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Authorities found two Chinese ships in the area where the cables were cut, according to data from a GPS-like automated identification system that shows a ship’s location.

“We cannot rule out that China destroyed them on purpose,” said Su Tzu-yun, a defense expert with the government think tank the National Defense and Security Research Institute, citing research that only China and Russia had the technical capabilities. to do this.

“Taiwan needs to invest more resources in the repair and protection of the cables.”

Internet cables, which can be 20 to 30 millimeters (0.79 to 1.18 inches) wide, are protected by steel armor in shallow water, where they are most likely to collide with ships.

Despite the protection, ships and their anchors, or fishing boats using steel nets, can cut the cables quite easily.

Still, “this level of breakage is highly unusual for a cable, even in the shallow waters of the Taiwan Strait,” said Geoff Houston, chief scientist at the Asia Pacific Network Information Center, a nonprofit organization that manages and distributes Internet resources such as IP Addresses for the region.

Without a stable internet connection, the cafe’s owner, Chiu Sih-chi, said that seeing the doctor for his young son’s cold became a hassle because they had to visit the hospital first just to get an appointment.

The owner of a breakfast shop said she has lost thousands of dollars in recent weeks because she usually takes orders online. Customers flocked to her booth expecting their food to be ready when she hadn’t even seen her messages.

Faced with unusual difficulties, the residents of Matsu devised all sorts of ways to organize their lives.

A couple planned to deal with the upcoming peak season by having one person stay in Taiwan to access their reservation system and pass the information to the other via text messages.

Some enterprising residents crossed over to the other shore to buy Chinese telecom SIM cards, though they only work well in places closest to the Chinese coast, which is only 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) away at its closest point.

Others, like the bed and breakfast owner, Tsao Li-yu, would go to the Chunghwa Telecom office to use a Wi-Fi hotspot the company had set up for locals to use in the meantime.

Wang Chung Ming, head of Lienchiang county, as the Matsu islands are officially called, said he and the Matsu legislator went to Taipei shortly after the internet went down to ask for help, and were told they would have priority in any future . backup plans.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs has publicly solicited offers from operators of low-Earth orbit satellites to provide internet in a backup plan, after seeing Russia’s cyberattacks in the invasion of Ukraine, ministry chief Audrey Tang said. to The Washington Post last fall. . However, the plan remains stalled as a law in Taiwan requires that suppliers be at least 51 percent owned by a domestic shareholder.

A spokesperson for the Digital Ministry directed questions about the progress of the backup plans to the National Communications Commission.

NCC said it will install a surveillance system for the undersea cables, while relying on microwave transmission as a backup option.

Many Pacific island nations, before they started using Internet cables, relied on satellites, and some still do, for backup, said Jonathan Brewer, a New Zealand telecoms consultant who works in Asia and the Pacific.

There is also the matter of cost. Repairing the cables is expensive, with an initial estimate of $30 million New Taiwan dollars ($1 million) for the work on the ships alone.

“The Chinese ships that damaged the cables must be held accountable and pay compensation for the costly repairs,” said Wen Lii, head of the Matsu chapter of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Wang, the Lienchiang county chief, said he had mentioned the cables on a recent visit to China, where he met with a China Mobile executive. They offered to send technicians to help. But compensation, he said, will require providing hard evidence as to who did it.

For now, all residents can do is wait. The earliest cable laying ships can arrive is April 20, because there are a limited number of ships that can do the job.

A month without functional Internet also has its advantages. Chen Yu-lin, the owner of the bed and breakfast, has felt more at peace.

It was tough the first week, but Chen quickly got used to it. “From a life perspective, I think he’s much more comfortable because you get fewer calls,” she said, adding that he was spending more time with his son, who usually plays online.

In an internet cafe where off-duty soldiers played offline games, the effect was the same.

“Our relations have gotten a little bit closer,” said a soldier who gave only his first name, Samuel. “Because normally when there is Internet, everyone stays alone and now we are more connected.”