Taipei, Taiwan – When Taiwan seized a Chinese cargo ship, suspected of intentionally cutting one of the surfaces of telecommunications cables last month, the authorities pledged to “make every effort to clarify the truth” of what happened.

The Coast Guard Administration in Taiwan said it could not exclude the possibility of China Hong Tae 58 as part of the “gray zone storming”.

The last cases of damage to the submarine cables across the island and Europe indicate that proving sabotage, which is much lower than any responsible person, may not be an easy task.

Since 2023, there have been at least 11 cases of damage under the surface of the sea around Taiwan and at least 11 cases of this in Baltic SeaAccording to the Taiwanese and European authorities.

The Taiwanese and European authorities have identified China or Russia – allies who share increasingly tense relations with the West and its partners – as they are the potential perpetrators in a number of accidents, although they attributed many other natural causes.

In January, NATO fired Baltic To escalate suspicious activities by ships in the Baltic Sea.

However, the authorities have not announced specific reprisals against Beijing or Moscow, although the European Commission has revealed a road map calling for the enforcement of sanctions and diplomatic measures against “hostile actors” and “shadow fleet”.

The authorities must also charge any criminal individuals or companies despite the detention of a number of ships and crew, including Hong Tae 58, which was seized near the Taiwan Islands on February 25.

Beijing and Moscow denied any involvement in sabotaging the cables under the sea.

This is what the entire gray area revolves around. “It is about denial,” said Ray Paul, director of the Sea Light project in Stanford, who monitors the Chinese maritime activity.

“You just have to be denied enough, although everyone knows that you are, it cannot prove that you are.”

Cables under the surface of the sea – which intersect the globe that carries 99 percent of the intercontinental communications movement – suffer from damage due to age, environmental changes and marine activities such as hunting.

Cable errors are very common-as they range between 100 and 200 every year, according to the photography of remote communication data data in the field of communications-the practice in the industry is to build on the surface networks with integrated repetition to ensure continuous communication if one cable collapses.

These properties also make the surface cables a major target for the “hybrid war” or “gray region activities”-forced forced actions that are often transparent and lead to reasonable denial-according to security analysts.

“Most cable breaks are the result of accidents … The anchors may be unintentionally dropped in the harsh seas or left for a longer period of what is meant. Cables may also break when hunting networks are withdrawn in the wrong site. What is more, the ship may not realize that it broke a cable.”

“The simplest way for a bad actor to break the cable is to make it look like one of the accidents that usually cause such separators. The anchors that are dragged through the cable are one of the reasons for this.”

Barbara Kilman, a assistant director of Dragonfly in London, said, based on Singapore, said a series of recent cable breakdowns included sabotage signs despite the relatively large number of failures every year in in advance conditions.

“If you only look at the data, such as the number of times these accidents occur now and the number of cables that were damaged suddenly at the same time, and include that the proximity of some of these ships near these cables, you have a statistical deviation indicating that something else is happening,” said Kilman island.

The accident, which participated in Hong Tai 58, came just weeks after the Taiwanese authorities detention for a short period of Sean Xing 39, who was distorted Cameroon on suspicion of withdrawing its anchor on a portion of the Pacific cable, which connects Taiwan to the western coast to the United States.

Coast Guard officials said they were unable to ride the ship due to bad weather and the ship sailed to South Korea.

The Lloyd Industry List said that the Chinese shipment fluctuated the automatic identification system (AIS) inside, stopped and broadcast up to three separate identities.

Law enforcement at sea is very difficult not only for practical reasons but also legal reasons, including conflicting claims of the jurisdiction.

Under the United Nations Agreement on the Law of the Sea, ships that sail in international waters are generally subject to the judicial jurisdiction of the registered country.

Within the territorial waters of the state, which was defined as 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the beach, ships are subject to the authority of that country.

However, the authorities can exercise a “global jurisdiction” on a ship outside its territorial waters in a limited number of conditions, including piracy, “terrorism” and slavery.

Some countries also assert a specialty in international waters in cases where the citizen is a victim or perpetrator of a crime.

Keiman of Dragonfly, even in cases where the authorities may be specialized and evidence, may be difficult to bring a legal issue for deliberate sabotage.

She said: “If investigators or intelligence services in the country are able to obtain a communication that clearly leads to the driver of the ship to do so, they may have an argument and they can try to sue.”

“I think this will be very difficult.”

The investigation into the European authorities in Yi Bing 3 confirmed the retirees in the following two cables of the surface contacts in November in November.

AIS data showed that Yi Bing 3 slows down near the captains – which linked Finland with Germany and Sweden with Lithuania – close to their cut.

Sonar photos from the nearby sea bottom showed evidence that the ship had taken its berth for 160 km (99 miles).

Despite the evidence, European investigators soon hit a diplomatic wall because the ship was flying under the flag of China and was established in international waters.

Beijing announced that it will work Investigation of the accident Its itself, although it allowed actors from Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark on board as “observers”.

In late December, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the owner of Yi Peng 3 decided to resume his journey to consider the physical and mental health of the crew and follow a “comprehensive evaluation and consultation” with the European authorities.

The Marine Safety Administration in China and its embassy in Stockholm did not respond to Al -Jazeera requests to comment.

Sweden Foreign Minister Maria Malar Strengard at the time criticized Beijing for not allowing investigators on the plane to conduct an initial investigation.

“The Swedish prosecutors, along with the police and others, are allowed to conduct some investigation measures as part of an investigation on the plane. We were clear with China for this.”

Jeans Wezel, a Danish defense analyst in the North Defense Analysis, said, but even if European investigators were not satisfied, there was not much that could be done to cause an international accident.

“In international waters, it is very difficult without the approval of the master, owner/operator or science. Within the territorial waters, the jurisdiction of the coastal state begins, allowing inspection if there is any doubt that there is an illegal activity.”

In the case of Yi Ping 3, you arranged exactly outside the Danish [territorial waters]Giving both the coastal states of Denmark and Sweden difficulties using force to go on the plane and without adequate legislation. “

In the months that has passed since Yi Ping 3 left Europe, cable damage continued in the Baltic Sea even as NATO pledged to intensify his defense of the region.

It includes the incident of December 25 Eagle involvementA suspected Russian oil tanker flying the flag of Cook Islands.

The ship was 100 km (62 miles), which destroyed the cables below the surface of the sea in the Gulf of Finland, according to the Finnish authorities.

Unlike other cases, the Finnish authorities directed the ship to its territorial waters and its package.

Three crew members are currently under the imposition of a travel ban and the criminal investigation continues, although Eagle S itself is allowed to leave Finland last month.

Hermann Lyongburg, the Finnish lawyer, who represents the owners of the eagle, told Al -Jazeera that the accusations were “nonsense”, and said that the Finnish police “searched the ship inside and outside nine weeks and did not find anything.”

With US President Donald Trump pushed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, the intelligence service in Finland warned last week that the end of the conflict will liberate the resources of Russia and its entirety to carry out sabotage.

“The use of the agent by various countries recently has become more prominent in both intelligence and the broader influential scenario. The Finnish security and intelligence service said in a statement that” sabotage in Europe linked to the Russian Military Intelligence Service GRU is an example. “

“Using mediators, Russia seeks to cover its paths. Russian sabotage aims to influence public opinion, a sense of public safety, and overcome the authorities in the targeted countries.”

The Russian embassy in Stockholm did not respond to the request for comment.

Powell from Sea Light said that sabotage against the surface cables is likely to continue.

He said: “This seems to be something of the last direction, and China, Russia and others will do so because they will mainly count that the response will not be bad enough,” he said.

“The question is due to this, how does the international community respond? How does Taiwan respond?