Summary
China expressed willingness to cooperate with Sweden’s investigation into the severing of two Baltic Sea data cables on November 17-18, near where a Chinese-flagged vessel, Yi Peng 3, was sighted.
Sweden has formally requested China’s collaboration and asked the ship to move to Swedish waters for inspection.
The cables, linking Finland-Germany and Sweden-Lithuania, have been repaired. Authorities from Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, and Germany are investigating, with Germany suspecting sabotage.
Russia dismissed accusations of involvement as “absurd.” China stated it is in active communication with Sweden.
Pure speculation on my part here, but could it be that this was done at the behest of Russia by the people on the ship, maybe on the orders of the company that owns the ship, but not an officially sanctioned PRC operation?
Or just by a Russian captain on a Chinese ship. This is an earlier article later ones omit this. A few different sources say the captain is Russian, but none of the ones in the news today mentioned it. The only information given is that the ship itself is Chinese.
That’s how EU investigators are thinking too IIRC.
It’s possible, we won’t know until we investigate. Seems very positive for diplomacy that Beijing is open to discussion and investigation here, either way.
It’s Beijing’s openness that is why this is what I’m speculating. I think they would be a lot less willing to cooperate if they had sanctioned this. But I’m no expert on international geopolitics, so… 🤷
They could just be trying to seem cooperative and uninvolved, though, right? 🤷♂️
They don’t have the technology the USA have for splicing underwater cables so this would be a great opportunity to tap into the cables with the pretense of helping to fix them.
The synopsis says the cables are already repaired, and it take more than a random merchant vessel to repair underwater cables.