Did a Chinese ship sever Europe’s internet cables? “Act of war,” Germany warns
Imagine you’re an official at Finland’s internet security agency. Monday morning starts like any other—coffee, emails, quiet chatter. Then alarms blare. Undersea cables, critical lifelines for Europe’s internet, have gone down. First one, then another. Your team watches in disbelief as speeds plummet across the continent. What caused this? Boat anchors? A natural event? Unlikely. It feels deliberate.
As the investigation deepens, a name emerges: Yi Peng 3. A Chinese cargo ship, recently seen crawling through the Baltic Sea at an unusually slow pace, and in the exact locations of both cables–at the moment each broke. You pull up its movements on radar. It stops at one site and drifts for an hour. Then, without warning, it bolts, doubling its previous speed. “That’s not normal,” someone murmurs. You agree.
The Yi Peng 3 and internet cables
Further digging reveals the Yi Peng 3 had just left the Russian port of Ust-Luga. What was it doing there? Taking on cargo? Or something more sinister—equipment or personnel? The timing raises eyebrows. The internet cables severed days later lie on routes critical to Europe’s data infrastructure. Investigators can’t ignore the possibility of sabotage.
The Yi Peng 3 doesn’t get far. Danish naval vessels intercept the ship near the Great Belt, bringing it to a stop for questioning. A closer look reveals its starboard anchor, badly mangled, as though it had been dragging across the seafloor. Germany’s defense minister doesn’t mince words. “This is deliberate sabotage,” he warns. The Chinese deny involvement, calling the accusations “absurd.” But suspicion lingers.
China’s checkered past with piracy
Theories about the motive swirl. Could this be a warning shot in the escalating hybrid warfare between global powers? “China and Russia are testing the West’s response times and resilience,” one EU official speculated. Past incidents fuel these fears. A 2023 report linked a Chinese ship to damage to a Baltic gas pipeline, and accounts of Chinese state-sponsored piracy stretch back years. A ListVerse investigation highlighted the mysterious 1995 hijacking of the Hye Mieko, where a Chinese Coast Guard vessel reportedly commandeered a merchant ship, sold its cargo, and denied involvement. These actions point to a troubling pattern of state-enabled maritime disruptions.
Repair teams now work tirelessly to restore the severed lines, while Europe scrambles to bolster undersea surveillance. But as one Finnish official put it: “How do you protect thousands of kilometers of cable lying unguarded on the ocean floor?” The Yi Peng 3 raised alarms, but the incident has exposed a terrifying vulnerability. If cables remain this easy to target, can the global internet survive its next big test?
Next, see a deep dive on the Yi Peng 3 incident in the video below:
