‘Too early’ to rule out China-Russia cooperation in Baltic seabed cable incident, says Pentagon official

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon official said she’s unsure whether the recent damage to undersea cables in the Baltic Sea was the result of an intentional act and part of a broader Russian-Chinese plot, but the circumstances are suspicious enough to raise questions.

“I think that even a rational person, though, would say ‘Why is a Chinese vessel doing this and operating in this area?’ Some of our partners I’ve heard say this potentially leads back to Moscow,” Iris Ferguson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for arctic and global resilience, said during an event with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”It’s still too early to say, obviously, investigations are ongoing, but these are the kinds of dual use of one another’s assets that I think we need to just be mindful of.”

Ferguson made clear she was referencing public reporting and statements about the incident, and that she was speaking in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Pentagon. But, she said, “I think absolutely you have to question, like, what are the motivations behind it?”

The incident in question took place in mid-November, when the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 reportedly dropped its anchor and dragged it across a stretch of the Baltic seabed, in the process damaging undersea cables near Sweden and Denmark.

While US and European officials have expressed confidence the ship is responsible for the damage, what is less clear is whether the act was deliberate. Soon after the incident, the Swedish government declined to directly assign blame but said that “situations like these must be assessed with the growing threat posed by Russia in our neighbourhood as a backdrop. This includes an increased number of hybrid activities in Europe.”

China has rejected accusations of sabotage.

“I would like to reiterate China’s consistent support working with all countries to maintain the security of international submarine cables and other infrastructure in accordance with international law,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters last month, Reuters reported. Russia has also denied involvement.

Since the incident occurred, Danish navy ships have been monitoring the Yi Peng 3, while Sweden and other European countries have sought the crew’s cooperation. Because the ship is in international waters, authorities are unable to force it to come into port.

The incident is one in a series of events in recent years featuring European officials discovering damage to seabed cables running between their countries — sometimes the causes are known and other times they have been a mystery.

RELATED: UK Naval Chief On Threats To Undersea Infrastructure: ‘We Don’t Fully Understand’ Solutions

Regardless, the Pentagon has taken notice and made defense of underwater infrastructure a priority area for the trilateral security pact AUKUS. Equally, American officials and Ferguson in particular, have warned about Russia and China’s increasing cooperation. Just this year, Ferguson spearheaded a new arctic strategy for the Defense Department.

“Increasingly, the PRC and Russia are collaborating in the Arctic across multiple instruments of national power,” according to the document. “Russia’s isolation as a result of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made it increasingly reliant on the PRC for financing energy export infrastructure in the Arctic. Over 80 percent of Russia’s natural gas production and nearly 20 percent of its petroleum production comes from the Arctic, and Russia is increasingly turning to the PRC to fund this extraction and purchase these resources.”