Taiwan says undersea cables to island near China ‘disconnected’

Taiwan on Wednesday reported that its undersea cable to the Matsu Islands near China has been completely disconnected due to the aging of the core wires.

In a statement, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said that backup communication, including microwave communication, has been activated.

"The Data Transmission Department has requested Chunghwa Telecom to activate microwaves to fully support communications between Taiwan and Matsu, and coordinate submarine cable ships to repair the Taiwan-Malaysia No. 2 and No. 3 submarine cables as soon as possible," it said.

The ministry said that the disconnected cable is expected to be restored before the end of February

It added that Chunghwa Telecom has been asked to activate backup measures in accordance with its critical infrastructure security protection plan and use sufficient microwave bandwidth (12.6Gbps).

"During the Spring Festival, local people can still withdraw money through ATMs, and credit card and online transactions will not be interrupted," said the ministry.

Earlier this month, Taiwan claimed that a China-linked ship entered its waters and damaged an undersea submarine cable.

Taipei said it was not a simple accident but a "gray zone threat" from Beijing.

Later, China rejected the Taiwanese claim of damaging submarine cables and called it a "baseless" assumption.

Separately, the China Coast Guard conducted a routine law-enforcement patrol on Tuesday in the waters near Kinmen Islands -- a group of Islands governed by Taiwan.