Taiwan to Scrutinise Ships With 'Flags of Convenience'

Move comes after one of its undersea cables was cut by China-linked cargo vessel

- Yip Wai Yee

The recent severing of an undersea cable off Taiwan has underscored how important it is for the island to strengthen its communications resilience, amid concerns that the critical subsea systems connecting it to the rest of the world may become a target of sabotage in a potential conflict.

On January 15, Taiwan's National Security Bureau said that it plans to step up the monitoring of ships flying so-called flags of convenience, referring to vessels that are registered to countries other than their owners.

If these ships come close to undersea cables and enter within 24 nautical miles of Taiwan's coast, the coast guard will board them for investigations, the bureau added in its report to lawmakers ahead of ministers taking questions in Parliament on January 16.

While such measures will be useful for now, it remains to be seen if they can achieve a strong enough deterrent effect in the longer term, according to Mr Ian Li Huiyuan, a military expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"Such ships do exist for innocent reasons - for example, it could simply be cheaper to register a ship in a certain country," he told The Straits Times. "So it may tax Taiwan's ability to manage the situation if they're having to monitor all flag-of-convenience vessels."

The proposal comes after Taipei said that a China-linked cargo vessel, the Shunxing-39, damaged an undersea data cable to the north of the island on January 3. The ship sailed under the Cameroon flag and was also registered in Tanzania, but it was owned by a Hong Kong company, according to Taiwanese officials. All seven crew members on board were Chinese nationals, said Taiwan's coast guard.

The incident caused minimal disruption to the island's web traffic after Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom rerouted data to other cables, and there is no direct evidence that the damage inflicted was deliberate.