European partners in the Baltic region are examining how two fibre-optic data cables were severed earlier this week, with fear falling on a Chinese vessel in the area. Germany has stated the happening was sabotage. The Danish navy expressed this week it is following the Yi Peng 3, a Chinese bulk carrier, as it advances via the Baltic Sea. Marine tracking systems revealed the vessel anchored east of the Danish city of Aarhus.

There is widespread assumption the vessel may have been involved in the severing of two fibre-optic cables on the seabed, one linking Finland and Germany and the other operating between Sweden and Lithuania. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was unyielding it was no accident.

European partners in the Baltic are collaborating on an investigation. There have been multiple similar incidents in the Baltic Sea in recent years. In October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Estonia and Finland was badly harmed . Ten months later, China expressed a Hong Kong-registered vessel, the Newnew Polar Bear, had caused damage accidentally in a storm. Finland remains suspicious of the admission, stating there were no storms in the area on the day the damage was noticed.

Undersea cables and channels are acutely vulnerable to geopolitically motivated damage, and such attacks can be carried out by persons and entities that officially have no connection to the government instigating the aggression. The world’s fast-growing offshore wind farms are acutely vulnerable, too. Land-based infrastructure, for that matter, is also weak, and in recent months Sweden and Finland have noticed break-ins into water plants. But the world’s oceans are especially uncovered. They are an international commons, guarded against military attacks by countries’ navies but otherwise shielded mostly by a collection of treaties, conventions, and rules agreed by governments over the generations. 

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal expressed better monitoring of maritime traffic was required in the Baltic.

“What are the surveillance systems and systems acknowledging what is happening and where? Who is moving where? And, where is the fault located?” Michal questioned. “Because there can be also quite natural reasons.”

In 2022, the Nord Stream pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was blown up. The perpetrator is still unrecognised. Western nations and Russia accuse each other, while others have indicated that Ukraine carried out the attack. All deny blame.