The Balticconnector oil pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged in October 2023, putting it on hold for six weeks.  , Suspicion immediately fell upon a Chinese-owned, Hong Kong-flagged box send called the , Newnew Polar Bear.
Then the , South China Morning Post has  , reported , that the Chinese government agrees the outlet of the , Newnew Polar Bear , severed the network. Taiwanese officials claim that the injury was an accident and was caused by bad weather.
It is a major and unmistakably positive growth that Beijing is taking control of this tragedy.  , But its entire significance may go deeper – and lighter.  ,
Beijing normally refuses to acknowledge its errors. The PRC has frequently preferred to accept fault rather than to have on impossible counterarguments.
In the legendary 2001 flying incident incident off Hainan Island, the Taiwanese government , asserted , that a fairly flexible Foreign J-8 fighter jet was the victim of abrupt, violent maneuvering by a US EP-3 – a lumbering, four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft.  ,
In one incident in a disputed region of the South China Sea in which Chinese vessels harassed Asian oil exploration ships by cutting the cables that towed their study tools, the PRC government claimed that a Chinese team cut the cable in self-defense because the survey vessel engaged in violent maneuvering.
China’s entrance of responsibility for causing the Balticconnector should not be taken as an indication of PRC interest in transparency, but rather as a case of Beijing choosing to continue to deny it despite overwhelming evidence against it.
As an example, PRC officials denied for years that Beijing had a major air pollution problem, also claiming the US ministry’s reported air quality measurements were false news until authorities , tired of defending , a clearly absurd position and started talking about solutions.
Another example: On January 11, 2007, without prior announcement, China launched a missile into space that destroyed an aging Chinese satellite, creating a large debris field. The US stopped conducting these tests in 1985 because of the danger that certain types of debris pose to other spacecraft.
The Chinese government received widespread condemnation for the test as well as for its refusal to address it.  , Nearly two weeks later, PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao finally , confirmed , the test, while emphasizing that the incident was a “peaceful use of space” and “does not constitute a threat to any country”.
There are exceptions to the pattern. In some circumstances, the negative political repercussions of coming clean are so great that the Chinese government will never acknowledge bad behavior, even when presented with mountains of supporting evidence.  ,
This list would include the mass persecution and imprisonment of Uighurs in Xinjiang Province, the massacre of protestors in and near Tiananmen Square in June 1989, and China’s government-sponsored cybercrime.
The incident, which occurred in February 2023, is comparable to the New New Polar Bear incident, in which the Chinese government clearly admitted that the balloon was Chinese and claimed that it was just trying to monitor the US weather and that it was unintentionally flies over the US.
If we take the context into account, the NewNew Polar Bear incident comes across as more darkly ominous.
Some investigators believe the damage was intentional. The ship’s crew could have been unaware that their anchor had reportedly been plowing the seabed for 180 kilometers before it hit the pipeline, according to Estonia’s defense minister, who questioned how the ship’s defense minister could have been.  ,
Similarly, Finland’s Minister of European Affairs , Anders Adlercreutz opined,” I would think that you would notice that you’re dragging an anchor behind you for hundreds of kilometers.  , I think everything indicates that it was intentional”.
China is a quasi-ally of Russia, and Russia had a motive to punish Finland. Relations between the two nations were tense at the time of the incident because Finland had joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) six months prior.  ,
The month the Balticconnector was severed, Finland’s Security and Intelligence Service , reported , that Russia considered Finland a hostile country and was “prepared to take measures against Finland”.
The Newnew Polar Bear , has significant Russian connections.  , After leaving the damaged area, the ship , sailed , between China’s east coast and Russia’s Baltic coast using the Northern Sea Route within the Arctic Circle, proving that this route ( shorter than going through the Suez Canal ) is viable for cargo ships. During part of its voyage, a Russian government-owned icebreaker accompanied the ship.
The ship also changed the ship’s registered operator’s name from the Chinese firm Hainan Xin Xin Yang to the Russian firm Torgmoll, which has offices in Moscow and Shanghai and participates in Belt and Road Initiative projects.
Any Chinese citizen who works in the private sector is required to comply with the PRC government’s order to carry out a national security-related task. Although it is likely that there are only a small percentage of PRC private citizens working side jobs for their governments, it is obvious that the PRC government frequently uses the Chinese private sector as a multiplier:
- Civilian , fishing fleets , support China’s geopolitical objectives in the South China Sea.
- The PRC , enlists , some of its private citizens residing abroad to gather intelligence.
- And , it relies , on civilian businesses to help supply computer hackers who commit cyber crimes under government direction.
In the Taiwan Strait, China is suspected of engaging in similar behavior. Chinese fishing boats and excavator equipment frequently sever undersea communication cables that connect Taiwan to its offshore islands, which are very close to the mainland of China’s coast.
There is also a clear reason for this, given that Beijing has waged various forms of gray zone warfare against Taiwan for years.  ,
Atlantic Council senior fellow Elisabeth Braw , concludes , that the rupture of undersea cables serving Taiwan is so “disproportionately frequent” that it “does n’t look like accidental damage — it looks like harassment of Taiwan”.
The sabotage of undersea internet cables may be a skill that China has developed and is now utilizing further afield.
The NewNewPlastic Bear incident has three possibilities:
The best scenario is that the Balticconnector’s was accidentally severed. Chinese authorities may even be pressing Chinese shippers to make sure that something similar does n’t happen again because China finds the fallout embarrassing.
Another possibility is that the incident was merely an intentional act of sabotage carried out by a member of the Chinese government, but the overall outcome was unfavorable enough to deter China from doing so once more.
In the worst case scenario, it is possible that China and Russia are starting to develop a new type of strategic cooperation.  ,  ,
Russia is receiving missiles and artillery ammunition from North Korea in order to support Putin’s conflict in Ukraine.  , Until now, Beijing has avoided going that far to support Putin.  , Rather, China has been providing non-lethal assistance while PRC officials and the media , criticize , the United States for “adding fuel to the flames” by arming Ukraine.
However, conducting gray zone warfare outside of its alleged sphere of influence and in direct opposition to Moscow’s interests would be a novel feature of Sino-Russian security cooperation, which poses new global challenges for the authoritarian bloc in comparison to the US bloc.
Beijing’s efforts to improve relations with Western Europe were unintentional, if the Balticconnector’s sabotage was indeed intentional. This also raises the question of what Moscow owes Beijing in exchange.  ,
A similar form of payback would be a specific Russian response to Taiwan’s or South China Sea conflict.  ,
It’s possible that the Chinese government’s takeaway from this incident is that openness is not so bad, and that making claims that gray zone warfare is unfavorable as a result of claiming that it was an accident are made.
Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.