this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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The tool, which is able to cut lines at depths of up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) – twice the maximum operational range of existing subsea communication infrastructure – has been designed specifically for integration with China’s advanced crewed and uncrewed submersibles like the Fendouzhe, or Striver, and the Haidou series.

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[–] Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world 104 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"That could reset the world order"

Lmao, what hyperbolic bullshit. It's just a cable cutter. Most nations have shit like this, but thanks for letting us know in the title this is just Chinese propaganda.

[–] josefo@leminal.space 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It will shift the orders from cables to starlink. Not the best idea tho, it sucks ass

[–] b3an@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Just wait! Then they’ll start flooding space with mini satellites. Then they’ll start dogfighting with them. :)

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[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 63 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Powerful seems like a pointless adjective here.

It doesn't take much power to destroy a cable. Did they invent a really long, and powerful, chain with a powerful anchor on it only usable by a boat with powerful electric winch?

Maybe they put AI in it too, for extra power of course

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[–] Wahots@pawb.social 55 points 1 week ago

No shit, lol. Those cunts have been cutting cables for almost a year now. This is why countries tend to hide the exact locations of cables. Shit is expensive.

[–] gigachad@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

...as reported by the South China Morning Post lol

[–] Tiger@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago

Historically they were a solid paper, based out of Hong Kong. It’s a toss up these days though, not sure.

[–] zaxvenz@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] oce@jlai.lu 22 points 1 week ago (4 children)

They already do it by simply dragging boat anchors across, it's obviously going to be weaponized further. There have multiple data and power cables cut like this in the Baltic sea recently. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/30/europe/baltic-sea-cable-anchor-drag-russia-intl-latam/index.html

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[–] NotLemming@lemm.ee 32 points 1 week ago

Let me guess, they already tested it

[–] az04@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

This could have been a The Onion title

[–] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If I had that type of technology I would not advertise it

[–] Kabriste@lemm.ee 20 points 1 week ago

For me it's quite the opposite. It's all about power projection in the grand scheme of things.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A doomsday device is useless if no one knows you have it.

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[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Fucker McGucker, this is evil

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean, no? Ok let's say you did cut off the internet, there's still radio. Shortwave still can reach spies in foreign countries with their numbers stations now, and then there's VHF/UHF at home etc. Snail mail still exists, so does ol' fashioned landlines for communication at least internally even if they cut undersea telcom cables, hell I'm pretty sure CDMA would still be running, this sets us back to like 1990 at most, especially if we take this threat seriously and start implementing non-internet based (or sat internet) fallbacks just in case standard comms go down for a while until a new cable can be lain.

Like don't get me wrong, we'd definitely feel the effects, but this isn't some kind of world dominating shit we're talking about here, it's just pretty inconvenient, especially if we already have alts in place as fallbacks so we don't have to scramble to set them up.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The knock on effects of substantial infrastructure interruptions like this can have massive impacts that snowball aggressively. Not saying you’re wrong, but it is nothing to scoff at. Things like this do have the potential to severely change the geopolitical landscape.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Cool

So for every European deep sea cable cut it should send a fleet of Russian and Chinese ships to the bottom, torpedo the fuckers. Just by default presume it was either of them and make then responsible for the safety of our cables. If you fail to protect our cables, we'll send your ships to the next life.

Gloves. Off.

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[–] TheDeadlySquid@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)
[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Don’t worry, they’re working on satellite warfare too. Kessler syndrome, here we come

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[–] Litebit@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

If only cables can be designed to pull down ships that try to cut or anchor drag them. Maybe defensive cable around the main cable. Or some kind bigger of casing/shell around actual cable.

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[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Coming soon to vague shell corporation owned fishing boats to the shore of the Baltic and Northern seas!

Sponsored by China and Russia

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