China ready to attack Pacific undersea cables, says new congressional commission report
by Bill Gertz · The Washington TimesChina’s military has built weapons for cutting strategic undersea communications cables in the Pacific as part of “gray zone” or low-level warfare, according to a new congressional commission report.
The Chinese are rapidly preparing the capabilities to attack underwater cables using dual-use military-civil fusion technology that will allow its forces to access and target the lines in potential offensive military attacks during a future conflict, the report published by the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission warns.
The tools range from submersibles capable of diving 6,200 feet underwater to swarming underwater drones.
The report states that China regards undersea cables as vulnerable to offensive action both above and below the level of kinetic military action.
Pacific cable connections among the U.S. and allies Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines are often located in shallow or contested waters and in busy shipping lanes and are among the most vulnerable in the Pacific networks, the report said.
Attacks on cables near Taiwan by China could impact U.S. efforts to defend the island from an attack, the report said.
“The ability to conduct sabotage attacks on undersea cables gives China the ability to effectively hold an adversary’s infrastructure hostage as a tool of ’asymmetric leverage’ in both times of conflict and gray zone coercion,” the report said.
Military writings identify attacks on seabed infrastructure as asymmetric warfare tools against technologically superior adversaries like the U.S. and allow strikes that will not trigger political and legal thresholds of overt military attacks.
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One Chinese military official quoted in the report states that in a war, “cutting undersea cables is the most effective way to strike at the opponent’s vital points” at low cost and with high impact on disrupting enemy command and intelligence systems.
China operates a range of specialized deep-sea robot vehicles equipped with cable-cutting capabilities that could be used to covertly sabotage the communications of enemies in a conflict.
The robots include those with arresting and catching tools that carry “shark tooth” style cable cutters, specifically for fiber optic lines in ways that mimic biological damage and disguise the attacks, the report said.
Another method for cable attacks includes “hibernating” pre-positioned undersea cable weapons located near strategic cable infrastructure.
China’s People’s Liberation Army is pursuing what the report called “command of the deep sea” that differs from traditional notions of surface-dominance sea control.
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Command of the deep sea is defined as the ability to enter freely, remain undetected, and shape the deep sea military domain with high-tech capabilities and sensing.
“PLA-affiliated analyses describe the deep sea as a sixth operational dimension, characterized by concealment, endurance, and high barriers to attribution, and therefore particularly suited to asymmetric competition,” the report said.
Commission Chairman Randy Schriver said the Chinese are pursuing “command of the deep” to disrupt the networks.
“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,” he said Tuesday in announcing the release of the report.
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The report, prepared for the commission by the contractor China Strategic Risks Institute, offers several recommendations for Congress to bolster defenses against undersea cable attacks.
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