Chinese Survey Activity Near Pacific Cables Raises Sabotage and Connectivity Concerns

Chinese research vessels spent a statistically significantly greater share of their time near critical undersea infrastructure than vessels from other countries, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis of 200 research vessels from 47 nations. The findings included a Xiang Yang Hong vessel operating near three Pacific cables between July and October 2024. Repeated “lawnmower” survey patterns suggest seabed mapping that could support submarine operations or sabotage planning, but the findings do not establish that sabotage occurred.

A separate subsea-cable risk assessment identified waters around Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines as particularly exposed because of geopolitical tensions, shallow waters and heavy shipping traffic. Google’s TPU, Meta’s ORCA and the Verizon-co-owned E2A cable projects ranked among the five highest-risk projects assessed. Disruption to one or several trans-Pacific cables could overwhelm remaining direct-route capacity, reroute traffic over longer paths and significantly affect internet connectivity, cloud services and financial trading—underscoring the need for enterprises to validate provider route diversity and outage contingencies.