onsdag 26. mars 2025

‘Invasion’ barges and deep-sea cable cutters: why new Chinese maritime tech is spooking defense watchers

From a chain of massive barges stretching from a Chinese beach into the sea, to a powerful new design for cutting undersea cables at record depths, China’s latest maritime innovations have captured the attention of defense experts – fueling concerns about their potential role in a future invasion of Taiwan. While these new tools may ostensibly have civilian uses, experts say they highlight China’s expanding military and technological prowess – at a time when the ruling Communist Party is ramping up pressure on Taiwan, the self-governing democracy it claims as its own and has vowed to seize by force if necessary.

China already sends fighter jets and warships near the island almost daily and stages increasingly frequent military drills to intimidate what it calls “Taiwan separatist forces.”