China’s Ships Map Taiwan’s Undersea Cables

Taiwan faces mounting pressure across several fronts: Chinese research vessels have repeatedly traveled near or over undersea cable routes, raising concerns that Beijing is mapping vulnerable communications infrastructure as part of a gray-zone campaign. At the same time, China has scaled back large military exercises, but analysts say the relative calm does not mean Beijing has abandoned preparations for a future conflict. Taiwan is strengthening its resilience through increasingly complex disaster drills that test responses to earthquakes and conflict-like cascading failures, coordinating government agencies, emergency services, private organizations, and international partners.