By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-03-22 17:56:00 | Updated at 2025-03-23 18:30:21
1 day ago
China has revealed a breakthrough deep-sea cable cutting device which could sever underwater communications lines across the world.
The tool is said to be able to operate as deep as four kilometres below the waves - twice as far down as the maximum depth at which telecoms cables can run.
The device has been designed specifically to integrate with China's high-tech crewed and uncrewed submersible vehicles, according to the South China Morning post - but its unveiling marks an uneasy breakthrough in the eyes of the West.
The news marks the first time that any country has officially confirmed its ability to snip underwater cables - 870,000 miles of which exist around the world - and follows a series of China-linked sabotages in European waters.
870,000 miles of undersea cables exist around the world
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The new Chinese navy tool is said to be able to operate as deep as four kilometres below the waves
REUTERS
Ho also warned the cable damage may have been a Chinese attempt to test the limits of any international response as part of its "grey zone" tactics.
The newly-unveiled cable cutter, developed by the China Ship Scientific Research Center and the State Key Laboratory of Deep-Sea Manned Vehicles, targets "armoured cables".
Said cables are communications lines with steel, rubber and polymer casings - and make up the overwhelming majority of global data transmissions.
Researchers have insisted the tools exist for "civilian salvage" and seabed mining use.
Worries have risen in recent years that Xi Jinping's forces could cut cables in the South China Sea in the event of a conflict
GETTY
But with Beijing's eyes on the South China Sea, which contains a selection of key US bases, worries have risen in recent years that the world's second-largest economy could cut the cables off in the event of a conflict.
Kenny Huang, chief executive officer at the Taiwan Network Information Center, told Bloomberg as far back as 2022 that the cables were an "Achilles' Heel" to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, security experts have, in the last few days, warned of infrastructural threats closer to home.
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society think tank, told GB News: "If China maintains a stranglehold on our national security infrastructure, it could leave Britain undefended."
