The Chinese director of a firm whose vessel Taiwan suspects of having damaged an undersea communications cable said on Wednesday there was no evidence the ship was involved, an incident that has alarmed the government in Taipei.

Taiwan has accused a Chinese-owned ship of severing a critical data cable off its northern coast on Friday. Officials in Taipei discovered that four cores of an international submarine cable, which transmits data to America’s AT&T, were left ruptured early on Jan 3.

In 2023, the outlying Matsu Islands, within view of the Chinese coast, endured patchy internet for months after two undersea internet cables broke. These fiber optic cables that connect Taiwan to the internet suffered about 30 such breaks between 2017 and 2023.

Taiwan suspects that China was behind the cutting of an international undersea telecom cable early Friday morning.

Taiwanese authorities are investigating the severing of an undersea telecommunications cable near the island's northern coast, suspecting the involvement of a Cameroon-registered cargo ship with the Chinese name Shunxin-39.

The incident caused only minimal disruption of service but sent a message about the vulnerability of the island and its internet.

A Chinese-owned vessel is suspected of severing an undersea cable off the Taiwanese coast recently, according to authorities on the island. Taiwan’s coast guard requested that the cargo ship return to shore for an investigation,