You may recall that last year, an undersea pipeline and two communications cables in the Baltic were damaged. Investigations revealed that a Chinese ship had sailed over them at about the time the damage was noticed. Further inquiries confirmed that the container ship Newnew Polar Bear had dragged its anchor along the seabed and over the pipeline and cables. Its anchor was later found in the vicinity.
I find that very strange, because the ship was not anchored at the time, so its anchor could not have dragged due to natural causes (e.g. tide, wind, weather, etc.). It might possibly have fallen to the sea bed and been dragged along because nobody on the bridge of the ship noticed, but that's extremely unlikely. The noise of its descent (chain rattling through the hawsepipe) and/or the drag of the anchor on the seabed slowing the ship and/or affecting its course, must surely have been noticed. I don't see any way this could have happened accidentally - and that would mean that the ship was deliberately trying to sabotage the underwater facilities.
China has tried to excuse the incident on the grounds of bad weather.
“We hope that all parties will continue to advance the investigation in a professional, objective and cooperative manner and jointly ensure that the incident is properly handled,” the ministry in Beijing said in a statement in response to a query about Estonia’s misgivings.
. . .
An investigation conducted by China confirms that the vessel was responsible, but reportedly states that the damage was accidental and caused by a strong storm.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur questioned that finding.
“For me personally, of course, it is very difficult to understand how a ship’s captain can fail to notice for so long that you have an anchor dragging along the bottom,” he told public broadcaster ERR on Monday. “But it is the task of the prosecutor’s office to complete the investigation.”
In late October, Finnish investigators found an anchor near the site of the ruptured pipeline, which was out of service for six months and cost €35 million ($39 million) to repair. The issue was raised by Finland’s then-president, Sauli Niinisto, during a call with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in January.
Two underwater telecommunication cables linking Estonia to Finland and Sweden were also damaged at around the same time, though it is not clear whether the Chinese investigation found the same vessel to be responsible.
Criminal investigations in Finland and Estonia are ongoing.
There's more at the link.
I can't see it. Sorry. There's just no way such precise damage, inflicted on vital connectors between Scandinavia and the Baltic states, can be caused by an accidentally dragged anchor. Somebody planned and carried out this act.
Thinking about it, China is closely allied with Russia; and Russia is currently very unhappy with Finland (which has joined NATO and closed its border with Russia in response to that country's invasion of Ukraine) and the Baltic states, which are (rightly, IMHO) terrified of being invaded again by a country that occupied them after World War II and savagely repressed any nationalist attempts to regain their freedom until the fall of the Soviet Union made it possible. They're very vocal about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and have offered support to the latter country, which annoys the Russians no end. Could Russia have liaised with China to "persuade" one of the latter's merchant vessels to disrupt trade and/or communications between those nations, as a reminder that their independence and freedom exist only at Russia's sufferance?
I suppose we'll never know for sure, but I strongly suspect something like that happened.
Peter
A recent comment elsewhere indicated that the main anchor effect comes from a considerable length of heavy anchor chain on the seabed. For an anchor to cut cables and pipelines suggests that not much chain was payed out and the ship was "snagging".
ReplyDeleteIn rocky ground and some materials, the flukes of the anchor are what holds.
DeleteThe chain on the bottom may help with silt, but the problem with relying on chain on the sea bottom is thst part of the chain will move when the ship turns with current or tidal changes, so you have to allow for more space between ships is you rely on chain helping to hold a ship.
But as discussed here, this seems to have had to have been dragging for a ways - either intentional or criminally careless.
I have heard enough stories about Chinese carelessness and poor quality control (and training) that the second would not surprise me here.
One recent one is the flawed design of a Chinese rocket such that each launch leaves thousands of pieces of debris in space.
Jonathan
When you know that the official explanations are total BS. Trouble is, two can play that game. Can you say "escalation?"
ReplyDeleteCutting the cables would force communication by other pathways, perhaps ones already tapped...
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, here at home, we seem to be leaving a gap in our protection for undersea cables
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024/8/biden-harris-admin-defunds-national-security-program-for-woke-liberal-initiatives
Sorry, forgot to sign
DeleteCheers,
Mike Doyle
"Thinking about it, China is closely allied with Russia..."
ReplyDeleteThis is the one statement that strikes me as somewhat questionable.
It's possible that Vladomir Vladomirovich might have encouraged a non-state actor, but, again, I think that direction may be highly questionable: the PRC plays its own game.
The Chinese are known to use that 'technique' in the SCS... sigh... And yes, 2+2=4
ReplyDelete"I suppose we'll never know for sure,..."
ReplyDeleteLot of that going around these days, innit?
I've had this happen before. Some captains are just dopes. I've had anchor chains from large ships draped over live (large) gas pipelines, fully pressurized. Once notified, we've called in our own Master to stand on the bridge and supervise recovery. And since we physically inspect hydrocarbon pipelines every couple of years via ROV (checking for damage, free spans, etc), I can tell you that it's common to discover anchor and chain scars spanning pipelines, from ships that weren't so forthcoming about their mistakes. Sometimes, out in my boat, I'd spot them myself, moored in the wrong place or perilously close.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the Chinese captain dropped anchor before he had stopped moving and was paying it out while letting it drag, just being a little lazy. The comment above is correct stating that the holding power of an anchor is really due to the weight and friction of the chain lying on the seabed, in the mud. Of course, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that he was up to something, intentionally.
China, like the US DemoRat party, has "excuses" for everything. China needs to acquire multiple donations of green glass.
ReplyDeleteIt never ceases to amaze me how some people are so comfortable just lightly calling for slaughtering millions of people in a nuclear Holocaust. Green glass indeed. At least China doesn't indulge the pedos, trannies, and other degenerates that clown world apparently worships. But even if they didn't oppose that evil, until you've watched a little child die from radiation poisoning and burns, and decided that's totally fine in your opinion, you've got no business calling for nuking anyone.
DeleteOur ancestors had no problem annihilating entire villages or cities. We've forgotten how to wage war.
DeleteIf every man woman and child in China vanished off the face of the earth tonight, none of us would know it tomorrow morning if we weren't told about it. Same goes in reverse.
Amen Amen.
DeleteIt's not "totally fine"; no "collateral damage" is. But if the US is to survive as a free republic it may be necessary when the adversary doesn't give a flying fsck for their own people, much less mine. Yeah, nuking them over incompetence and stupidity is over the top; that was hyperbole. But FWIW I *am* totally fine with the nuking of 2 cities in Japan in 1945, especially since it saved (official estimates) over a million lives, American *and Japanese. Circumstances dictate what is acceptable, no matter how regrettable it is.
ReplyDeleteDamaging the infrastructure is so easy to do. Historically the occupiers would simply flatten the nearest towns, villages etc when sabotage was suspected. We are way to nice to do anything like that again. All of the infrastructure is equally vulnerable. We all just hope that nobody else notices. Of course, we just let in 18 million potential military age saboteurs so we don't stand a chance.
ReplyDeleteIf it was deliberate, well Russia has made it very clear they won't have NATO on their border. It is why they invaded Ukraine. On top of that all of us NATO people promised Russia when the Soviet Union went down that NONE of the now neighboring lands would be brought into NATO. That there would never be NATO on their border A promise immediately broken.
ReplyDeleteFinland we know can fight like demons and Russia would be fools to invade them. But the Baltic countries are fools to join NATO and all of them, Finland included are fools to be pals of the west instead of pals with Russia. Just like last time, if it comes to war, there is nothing the West can do to help, geography is simply against that. And the Baltic states have ZERO natural defenses from invasion.
You should be friends with the ones who can invade you, not with the ones who will just stand there and complain while you are being invaded.
Lawdog & I were discussing this soon after it happened. There is a very real possibility that the pipeline ruptures could be attributed to poor gas quality pumped from the Russian end. Under the pressures and temperatures involved, a big snowball could form that would travel down the pipeline at hundreds of miles per hour. Any curves or bends in the pipeline would be subjected inordinate stresses. The paucity of information only contributes to all the conjectures.
ReplyDelete