Taiwan

tracked under Infrastructure ▸ Subsea cables

state of play · Infrastructure

A drone carrying Semtex, a military-grade plastic explosive not commercially available, was placed beside a Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport overnight August 5; a DHL cargo aircraft struck an unknown object during its climb; investigators are searching for a second suspected flying object; German and NATO investigators are focusing on Russia as the likely actor. German Interior Minister Dobrindt described the incident as 'a new threat' to German infrastructure security. Leipzig/Halle is DHL's primary European cargo hub; the An-124 is one of the world's largest heavy-lift cargo aircraft. Counter-drone perimeter systems did not detect the tarmac-placed device, exposing a structural security gap at cargo facilities across NATO territory.

Auckland Transport confirmed the opening date of New Zealand's NZ$5.5 billion City Rail Link on August 5-6, after advertising billboards across Auckland accidentally revealed the date before an official announcement. The underground rail tunnel, discussed in Auckland for roughly a century, will allow trains to run through the city centre rather than terminating at Britomart station, the single piece of infrastructure that most changes Auckland's transport network capacity.

A Mediterranean cable cut blacked out Syria's internet for 48 hours before engineers rerouted via Cyprus and Turkey and spliced the fibre, a 1997-vintage single cable exposing how thin national redundancy is. Data-center load is straining the largest US eastern grid. The seabed and the grid remain the persistent single points of failure.

Watch: Leipzig/Halle investigation attribution and formal security-response from NATO cargo facility operators; whether the DHL aircraft collision and the tarmac drone are connected; CRL opening ridership figures in first weeks; cable-repair capacity and grid build-out.

Taiwan's 14 international submarine cables carry nearly all external internet traffic for the island, making them a primary gray-zone pressure point in any Taiwan Strait contingency.

full dossier ›

Taiwan runs first publicly named tabletop exercise simulating a PRC maritime coercion scenario

The drill tests civilian-military coordination under a sustained coast guard blockade, held three weeks after PRC vessels interfered with Taiwanese commercial shipping east of the island

Who Decides ·6 takes ·Jun 26

Global subsea cable network

The fiber-optic cables on the world's seabeds carry over 99% of international internet traffic, and concentrated chokepoints in the Red Sea, Hormuz, and Taiwan Strait face rising deliberate disruption.

·4 takes ·Jul 3

China runs first coordinated maritime law-enforcement operation east of Taiwan, drawing US and European condemnation

PRC coast guard vessels asserted jurisdiction in the Pacific waters beyond Taiwan's eastern coastline, interfering with commercial ships and triggering joint statements from the AIT, UK, France and Germany

What They're Not Saying ·8 takes ·Jun 26

Taiwan-Matsu subsea cable breaks again; microwave backup keeps Dongyin online

Cable No. 3 broke ~2.64km off Dongyin in April 2026; Chunghwa Telecom switched 1,500 residents to microwave links as a court jailed a Chinese captain over an earlier cut

What Broke ·9 takes ·Jun 25

The briefing, by email