Taiwan is investigating whether a ship linked to China is responsible for damaging one of the undersea cables that connects Taiwan to the internet, the latest reminder of how vulnerable Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is to damage from China.

台湾正在调查一艘与中国有关的船只是否对破坏连接台湾与互联网的海底电缆负有责任。这件事再次提醒人们，台湾的关键基础设施极易受到来自中国的破坏。

The incident comes as anxiety in Europe has risen over apparent acts of sabotage, including ones aimed at such undersea communication cables. Two fiber-optic cables under the Baltic Sea were severed in November, prompting officials from Sweden, Finland and Lithuania to halt a Chinese-flagged commercial ship in the area for weeks over its possible involvement.

此次事件发生之际，欧洲对似乎是蓄意破坏的行为（包括破坏类似的海底通信光缆）日益感到忧虑。去年11月，波罗的海海底的两条光缆曾被切断，导致瑞典、芬兰和立陶宛的官员们将该海域一艘悬挂中国国旗的商船扣留数周，因为它可能与此有关。

In Taiwan, communications were quickly rerouted after the damage was detected, and there was no major outage. The island’s main telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom, received a notification on Friday morning that the cable, known as the Trans-Pacific Express Cable, had been damaged. That cable also connects to South Korea, Japan, China and the United States.

台湾发现光缆受损后迅速改变了通信路线，没有发生重大通信中断。台湾主要电信运营商中华电信于上周五早上收到了光缆受损的通知，这条被称为跨太平洋快线的光缆也连接到韩国、日本、中国，以及美国。

That afternoon, Taiwan’s Coast Guard intercepted a cargo vessel off the northern city of Keelung, in an area near where half a dozen cables make landfall. The vessel was owned by a Hong Kong company and crewed by seven Chinese nationals, the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration said.

当天下午，台湾的海岸警卫队在北部城市基隆沿海拦截了一艘货船，货船所在水域靠近六条左右光缆上陆的地方。台湾海巡署称，该船由一家香港公司所有，船员是七名中国公民。

The damaged cable is one of more than a dozen that help keep Taiwan online. These fragile cables are susceptible to breakage by anchors dragged along the sea floor by the many ships in the busy waters around Taiwan.

受损的光缆是将台湾接入互联网的十几条光缆之一。这些脆弱的光缆很容易被台湾周边繁忙海域中许多船只拖曳在海底的锚切断。

Analysts and officials say that while it is difficult to prove whether damage to these cables is intentional, such an act would fit a pattern of intimidation and psychological warfare by China directed at weakening Taiwan’s defenses.

分析人士和官员们表示，虽然很难证明光缆是被故意损坏的，但故意损坏的行为符合中国为削弱台湾防御所采取的恐吓和心理战模式。

Taiwan said the cargo vessel it intercepted had registered under the flags of both Cameroon and Tanzania. “The possibility of a Chinese flag-of-convenience ship engaging in gray zone harassment cannot be ruled out,” the Coast Guard Administration said on Monday in a statement.

台湾称其拦截下来的货船在喀麦隆和坦桑尼亚两国注册。海巡署在周一的声明中表示：“不排除有中国籍权宜轮实施灰色地带侵扰之可能性。”

Such harassment, which inconveniences Taiwanese forces but stops short of overt confrontation, has a desensitizing effect over time, according to Yisuo Tzeng, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank funded by Taiwan’s defense ministry. That puts Taiwan at risk of being caught off guard in the event of a real conflict, Mr. Tzeng said.

虽然这种侵扰已给台湾的军队造成不便，但还未达到公开对抗的水平，久而久之会让人对这个问题不再敏感，台湾国防部资助的智库国防安全研究院的研究员曾怡硕说。他说，一旦发生真正的冲突，台湾可能会面临措手不及的危险。

Taiwan experiences near-daily incursions into its waters and airspace by the People’s Liberation Army. Last month, China sent nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels into waters in the area, its largest such operation in almost three decades.

台湾周边的水域和空域几乎每天都遭受中国人民解放军的突然侵入。上个月，中国向台湾周边水域派遣了近90艘海军和海警船只，这是中国近30年来规模最大的此类行动。

China has also deployed militarized fishing boats and its coast guard fleet in disputes around the South China Sea region, and stepped up patrols just a few miles off the shore of Taiwan’s outer islands, increasing the risk of dangerous confrontations.

中国还向南海有争议的水域派出军事化的渔船和海警船队，并在距离台湾外岛海岸只有几公里的水域加强巡逻，这些做法增加了发生危险对抗的风险。

Such harassment has been a “defining marker of Chinese coercion against Taiwan for decades, but over the last couple years has really stepped up,” said Gregory Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

这种侵扰是“中国几十年来对台湾进行胁迫的典型标志，但在过去几年里，这种行为已确实有所加强”，战略与国际研究中心亚洲海事透明度倡议组织主任格雷戈里·波林说。

And in situations like this one and the recent damage to the cables under the Baltic Sea, it is difficult for the authorities to calibrate their response when a ship’s true identity is uncertain.

在类似这次以及最近波罗的海海底光缆受损的事件中，因为船只真实国籍不明，当局很难做出适当反应。

一艘停泊在芬兰湾的油轮。芬兰当局今年1月表示打算对这艘船进行检查，以确定其在波罗的海海底光缆受损中起的作用。

“Do you deploy a Coast Guard vessel every time there is an illegal sand dredger or, in this case, a ship that is registered to a flag of convenience and has Chinese ties damages a submarine cable?” Mr. Poling asked.

“每次有非法挖沙船出现，或者像这次这样，一艘挂着权益船旗、但与中国有关的船只损坏海底光缆时，你都要出动海岸警卫队船只吗？”波林问。

Ship tracking data and vessel records analyzed by The Times show that the ship may have been broadcasting its positions under a fake name.

时报对船舶跟踪数据和船只注册记录的分析显示，这艘损坏光缆的船只可能一直在用假名通报自己的位置。

Taiwan said the ship appeared to use two sets of Automatic Identification System equipment, which is used to broadcast a ship’s position. On Jan. 3, at the moment that Taiwan said the cable was damaged, a ship named Shun Xing 39 was reporting its AIS positions in the waters off Taiwan’s northeastern coast.

台湾称，这艘船似乎使用了两套用于通报船只位置的自动识别系统设备。1月3日，就在台湾称电缆受损的时候，一艘名为“SHUNXING39”的船只正在台湾东北部海岸附近的海域通报其自动识别系统位置。

About nine hours later, at around 4:51 p.m. local time, Shun Xing 39 stopped transmitting location data. That was shortly after the time that the Taiwan Coast Guard said it had located the ship and requested that it return to waters outside of Keelung port for an investigation.

大约九小时后，既当地时间下午4点51分左右，“SHUNXING39”停止了传输位置数据。此前不久，台湾海岸警卫队称找到该船，要求其返回基隆港外海接受调查。

One minute later, and 50 feet away, a ship called Xing Shun 39, which had not reported a position since late December, began broadcasting a signal, according to William Conroy, a maritime analyst in Wildwood, Mo., with Semaphore Maritime Solutions, who analyzed AIS data on the ship-tracking platform Starboard.

一分钟后，一艘名为“XINGSHUN39”的船只开始在15米外的水域广播信号，这艘船自去年12月底以来一直没有通报过位置，密苏里州怀尔德伍德旗语海事解析公司的海事分析师威廉·康罗伊说，他分析了船舶跟踪平台“右舷”上的自动识别系统数据。

In the ship-tracking database, both Xing Shun 39 and Shun Xing 39 identify themselves as cargo ships with a class A AIS transponder. Typically, a cargo ship equipped with this class of transponder would be large enough to require registration with the International Maritime Organization and obtain a unique identification number known as an IMO number. Xing Shun 39 has an IMO number, but Shun Xing 39 does not appear in the IMO database. This suggests “Xing Shun 39” is the ship’s real identity and “Shun Xing 39” is fake, according to Mr. Conroy.

“XINGSHUN39”和“SHUNXING39”都在该船舶跟踪数据库里将自己定位为货船，都使用A级船舶自动识别系统。通常，配备A级船舶自动识别系统的货船是需要在国际海事组织注册并获得唯一识别号（即IMO编号）的大船。“XINGSHUN39”有IMO编号，但IMO数据库中没有“SHUNXING39”。康罗伊说，这表明“XINGSHUN39”是该船的真名，“SHUNXING39”是假名。

The Taiwan Coast Guard has publicly identified the vessel as Shun Xing 39, and said the ship used two AIS systems.

台湾海巡署在公开发布的信息中将该船称为“SHUNXING39”，并表示船上使用了两个自动识别系统。

Vessel and corporate records show that Jie Yang Trading Ltd, a Hong Kong-based company, took over as the owner of Xing Shun 39 in April 2024.

船舶和公司记录显示，总部设在香港的捷阳贸易有限公司于2024年4月接管了“XINGSHUN39”，成为船东。

The waves were too large to board the cargo vessel to investigate further, the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration said. Taiwan is seeking help from South Korea because the crew of the cargo vessel said it was headed to that country, the administration said.

台湾海巡署在声明中说，由于风浪大，无法登上货船进行进一步调查。海巡署称，已向韩国寻求帮助，因为船员称货船驶向韩国。

In 2023, the outlying Matsu Islands, within view of the Chinese coast, endured patchy internet for months after two undersea internet cables broke. These fiber optic cables that connect Taiwan to the internet suffered about 30 such breaks between 2017 and 2023.

2023年，在两条海底光缆受损后，在与中国隔海相望的离岛马祖列岛，互联网有好几个月时断时通。从2017年到2023年，将台湾与互联网连接的光缆发生了约30次这样的断裂。

将马祖接入互联网的海底电缆在2023发生断裂后，台湾当局在岛上设立了微波塔，帮助数千名居民恢复网络通信。

The frequent breakages are a reminder that Taiwan’s communication infrastructure must be able to withstand a crisis.

频繁的断裂提醒人们，台湾的通信基础设施必须有能力抵御危机。

To help ensure that Taiwan can stay online if cables fail, the government has been pursuing a backup, including building a network of low-Earth orbit satellites capable of beaming the internet to Earth from space. Crucially, officials in Taiwan are racing to build their system without the involvement of Elon Musk, whose rocket company, SpaceX, dominates the satellite internet industry, but whose deep business links in China have left them wary.

为帮助确保光缆出现故障时网络仍畅通，台湾政府一直致力于建设备份系统，包括建设一个在太空与地球之间传送互联网通信的低轨道卫星网络。台湾的官员们正在加速建设自己的卫星系统，没有埃隆·马斯克的参与是至关重要的。马斯克的火箭公司SpaceX目前主导着卫星互联网行业，但他在中国有深厚的商业关系，让台湾人对他心存戒备。