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Yes—subsea cables in and around the South China Sea face a real and growing risk, but “at risk” does not mean every break is sabotage. Anchor dragging, fishing and shipping, and earthquake-triggered seabed landslides create a persistent accident and natural-disaster baseline. A smaller number of incidents are suspected or confirmed deliberate acts, creating a difficult gray-zone security problem.
The most exposed connections link the United States with Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Many routes cross shallow, busy and contested waters where a single failure can reduce bandwidth and increase latency; several simultaneous failures could overload direct trans-Pacific routes and force traffic onto much longer paths.
Why cables around the South China Sea are unusually exposed
Submarine cables carry the vast majority of international data traffic. The United States–Taiwan–Japan–Philippines network crosses parts of the first island chain, where maritime claims, dense commercial traffic and shallow seabeds increase exposure to both routine accidents and strategic interference.
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“Undersea cables, carrying the vast majority of international data traffic, are the backbone of the global digital economy and are increasingly a matter of national security.”
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—Randy Schriver, chair of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), 22 September 2026
USCC vice chair Mike Kuiken describes the physical reality this way: “The cord coming into your house is the last hundred feet of a wire that crosses the Pacific.”
That long wire is typically only about the width of a garden hose, according to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Its small physical profile makes it difficult to monitor continuously across thousands of kilometres of seabed.
Are South China Sea cable breaks usually deliberate?
No. USCC says the vast majority of cable breakages are accidental or caused by natural factors. The security concern is that a hostile actor could exploit the same infrastructure discreetly, with attribution delayed or disputed.
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The ordinary accident baseline
- Anchors: A ship dropping or dragging an anchor can snag a cable in nearshore waters.
- Fishing and shipping: Trawling gear, vessel manoeuvres and seabed activity can damage exposed sections.
- Earthquakes and landslides: Seafloor movement can break several cables in rapid succession, far from the coast.
What counts as suspected sabotage
Attribution must remain case-specific. A damaged cable is not, by itself, proof of an intentional attack. Investigators need vessel, location, timing, seabed and communications evidence before classifying an incident as deliberate. Some cases can be pursued through criminal law: Taiwan’s Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 and Taiwan-Matsu No. 2 incidents ended in final criminal convictions, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA).
What Taiwan’s incident record shows
MODA’s damage analysis, released on 7 April 2026, separates the problem into “nearshore human interference and offshore natural disaster risks.” Taiwan had 15 international and 10 domestic cables at the end of February 2026, all designated critical infrastructure.
| Measure | Reported finding | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Coastal incidents | An average of 7–8 incidents a year over the previous four years | A persistent operational hazard, not a count of confirmed attacks |
| Anchor-related share | Anchor dragging averaged 38.3% of incidents over that period | Anchors are a major recurring cause near shore |
| Incidents in 2025 | Seven total; three were caused by anchor dragging (42.9%) | The 2025 percentage is a one-year figure, not a long-term average |
| Offshore earthquake effects | Submarine landslides disrupted SJC2, PLCN, EAC1, FNAL, RNAL and EAC2 in rapid succession | One natural event can affect multiple international routes |
| Human-caused incidents, 2022–2025 | CNAS counted 28 in Taiwan; three were suspected or confirmed deliberate sabotage by the People’s Republic of China | The three cases are a subset of 28 human-caused incidents, not of all cable breaks |
The record therefore supports a layered risk assessment: frequent accidental damage, occasional large natural events and a smaller but consequential set of suspected deliberate incidents.
Could China cut Taiwan’s internet cables?
China has the capability to create serious disruption, but public evidence does not establish that every damaged cable was cut by the PRC. CNAS’s count of 28 human-caused incidents from 2022 through 2025 includes three suspected or confirmed deliberate PRC sabotage cases. The remaining incidents should not be relabelled without case-specific proof.
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USCC’s warning is about strategic opportunity: cables in shallow, busy and contested waters could be disrupted in ways that are difficult to attribute quickly. Such an action could sit below the threshold of open armed conflict while imposing economic and political pressure.
How much damage can one severed cable cause?
One cut
Severing any cable reduces the capacity available to its users and increases latency when traffic is shifted to other routes. The immediate effect depends on spare capacity, network configuration and the location of the break. People may notice slower connections, congestion or degraded access to services rather than a total blackout.
Several cuts
USCC warns that even one disruption could overload currently available capacity on direct United States–Taiwan–Japan–Philippines routings. Multiple disruptions could force traffic around the globe, adding substantial delay and reducing the performance of applications that depend on short, predictable paths.
Services most exposed to delay or congestion
- Internet communications and consumer connectivity
- Financial services and high-frequency trading, where milliseconds matter
- Cloud platforms whose data centres depend on regional links
- AI services that exchange large data volumes or require low-latency access
A complete Taiwanese internet blackout would require cutting all of Taiwan’s cables, according to CNAS. That is a much higher bar than causing serious degradation on selected routes.
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How vulnerable are cables near the Philippines and Japan?
The same geographic factors apply across the first island chain: shallow approaches, heavy shipping and contested maritime spaces. Routes connecting the Philippines and Japan to the United States and Taiwan can provide alternative paths, but a disruption in one corridor may shift traffic onto other already-busy segments. The practical risk is therefore network-wide capacity loss, not simply whether one landing station remains connected.
Risk also varies by exact segment. A cable buried near a landing site has a different exposure from one lying on an offshore seabed exposed to anchors, fishing gear or landslides. Public incident totals should not be treated as a uniform probability for every cable.
Can satellites replace submarine cables?
No. Satellites can provide emergency or backup connectivity, but CNAS says satellite bandwidth remains several orders of magnitude below cable capacity. Satellite service also requires ground stations and, in many cases, terminals specific to the provider.
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Satellites are most useful for keeping essential links available while repairs are under way, connecting isolated sites and supporting emergency communications. They are a supplement to cable networks, not a full replacement for the capacity and latency of fibre-optic systems.
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What makes a cable network resilient?
Effective resilience combines prevention, rapid recovery and enough route diversity that a failure does not exhaust available capacity. The response options differ in what they improve:
| Measure | Primary benefit | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Maritime-domain awareness, AIS monitoring and exclusion zones | Prevention, detection and better attribution of ship activity | Coverage and compliance are harder in busy or contested waters |
| Cable patrols and physical protection near shore | Reduces accidental damage in the most exposed approaches | Cannot protect every offshore kilometre |
| Pre-positioned repair ships, spare cable and equipment | Shortens restoration time after a break | Repair fleets and specialised equipment are limited |
| Additional routes and geographically diverse landings | Retains capacity after a local failure | New routes cost money and may cross other risk zones |
| Joint incident-response protocols | Speeds decisions, evidence collection and public communication | Requires coordination across governments and operators |
| Satellite and other wireless backup | Maintains a limited emergency connection | Capacity is far below fibre and needs ground infrastructure |
USCC recommends common maritime-domain-awareness platforms, increased cable patrols, joint response protocols, tougher penalties and exclusion zones, plus investment in repair, redundancy and pre-positioned equipment. MODA describes a shift from “passive repair” toward “proactive defense” and “resilience building,” including early warning, physical protection, new routes, stronger AIS management and diversification of satellite frequencies and constellations.
The International Telecommunication Union’s 10 July 2026 roadmap groups resilience into three work areas:
- Timely deployment and repair.
- Risk identification, monitoring and mitigation.
- Connectivity and geographical diversity.
What operators and organisations should do now
- Map dependencies: Identify which applications, offices and data centres rely on each cable system and landing station.
- Test failover: Measure how traffic performs on alternate routes instead of assuming that a backup link will work under load.
- Prioritise low-latency services: Reserve the most direct surviving capacity for financial, emergency and operational traffic.
- Maintain non-cable options: Pre-plan satellite or other wireless links for essential, low-bandwidth communications.
- Set incident thresholds: Define who declares a cable outage, who communicates with customers and when law-enforcement evidence must be preserved.
- Review restoration contracts: Check repair-fleet availability, spare-parts locations, expected mobilisation times and access permissions.
Bottom line
Subsea cables off the South China Sea are genuinely at risk, but the evidence describes layered exposure rather than a campaign in which every break is an attack. Taiwan’s recent record shows that anchors and natural disasters remain major causes, while a smaller number of suspected deliberate incidents demonstrate how the infrastructure could be used for gray-zone coercion. Cables remain irreplaceable for bulk, low-latency connectivity; satellites, route diversity, monitoring and faster repairs can reduce the consequences of a cut but cannot remove the underlying risk.
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