Chinese anchor-like device to cut cables makes headlines

China has been pushed even more into the centre of cable-cutting incidents around the world after it emerged that a team of engineers at Lishui University developed a “dragging type submarine cable-cutting device” back in 2020.

According to Newsweek’s review of Chinese-language patent applications, engineers in China invented devices to sever such cables using anchor-like devices.

The patent application from Lishui University stated that “more and more submarine cables and communication cables are laid on the seabed of all parts of the world and the cables need to be cut off in some emergency situations”.

Zhang Shusen, Dai Ying, Fu Changrong, Gao Zikun, Li Xuping and Ji Guangyao, the team that submitted the application, also said that the traditional cutting method first needed to detect the position of the cables, then excavate, and salvage them for cutting.

“The process is complex, a lot of expensive equipment is needed, and the cost is too high. There is a need for a fast, low-cost cutting apparatus for submarine cables to accomplish this task,” they claimed.

Copper residue, which is used as a conductor in subsea cables, on the cutting anchor would prove the cut was successful, the patent application claimed.

The existence of such a patent application does not mean that they were used in any of the recent incidents, however, it does show that Chinese engineers were looking into the idea for such an activity.

One of the reasons for that was the existence of illegal cables off China that needed to be destroyed which produced a patent application for an anchor-shaped “ocean towing type cutting device” submitted in 2009. This latest application builds on the one from 2009 created by marine engineers at China’s State Oceanic Administration. Newsweek stated that both applications were dropped or turned down for unclear reasons, citing Chinese records.

A Norwegian expert on subsea cables told the media outlet on condition of anonymity that claiming the devices were necessary to remove illegal cables was absurd because the method was random and could also lead to damage to useful cables.

There have been several cable-cutting occurrences, especially in the Baltic Sea, where a communication cable between Sweden and Estonia and a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia suffered damage caused by the Chinese-controlled NewNew Polar Bear containership in October 2023.

In November last year, Yi Peng 3, a 23-year-old panamax bulk carrier owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, was noted as the top suspect linked to the severing of two data cables Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German fibre-optic cables.

Earlier this month, the Taiwanese Coast Guard claimed that a telecoms cable was severed off its northern coast with the Xing Shun 39 general cargo vessel suspected.

Chinese vessels are not the only vessels linked to such actions as a Russia-linked LR1 tanker Eagle S carrying oil from Russia to Egypt was detained after being suspected of damaging a subsea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia and disruptions of several data cables.