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China unveils a powerful deep-sea cable cutter that could reset the world order (www.scmp.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China – and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics.

The revelation marks the first time any country has officially disclosed that it has such an asset, capable of disrupting critical undersea networks.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This seems like a pointless article, any country can cut an undersea cable if they wanted to, Russia does it regularly. Just because they made a purpose built machine to do it doesn’t really “shake up” anything, it just makes it easier/ quicker for them to do it instead of dragging an anchor or using explosives.

Of course now, if the cable is perfectly severed we’ll know exactly who did it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The way it is currently done is by dragging an anchor over the cables, often multiple times. Baltic Sea is being monitored for this kind of activity and suspects are being watched more closely and even escorted. Specialised equipment for cable cutting makes things harder to monitor. Of course this is also a threat but good luck proving anything.