A court in Taiwan has ordered the captain of a Chinese-linked vessel to compensate Chunghwa Telecom over damage to the Tai-Peng 3 subsea cable, adding a civil damages order to the three-year prison sentence already imposed in 2025.

The case stemmed from an incident in February 2025, when a ship broadcasting as Hongtai 168 under the flag of Togo anchored about six nautical miles off Jiangjun in southwest Taiwan. Taiwan’s Coast Guard said shore authorities tried seven times to contact the vessel after it dropped anchor, but received no reply.

In the criminal proceedings, the captain was identified as Wang Yuliang. The court found that he had instructed two sailors to anchor in a charted no-anchoring area marked for critical undersea infrastructure. On 25 February 2025, the vessel was seen moving in a zigzag pattern before Chunghwa Telecom reported an outage on the Tai-Peng 3 cable linking Taiwan and Penghu.

Taiwanese authorities later said the 1,800-dwt ship was actually Hong Tai 58 and carried eight Chinese nationals. The captain was convicted in June 2025 and sentenced to three years in prison. The court said evidence showed the cable had been affected by an external force. He denied deliberate damage but acknowledged it could have resulted from negligence. His appeal was later rejected, while the other seven crewmembers were deported after investigators found insufficient evidence to proceed against them.

In the civil claim, Chunghwa Telecom sought recovery of repair costs, including vessel deployment, escort ships, cable and related materials. The court awarded the company more than half a million US dollars in damages.

The case was one of several incidents that led Taiwan to increase monitoring of vessels. Taiwan said it had placed particular focus on ships using flags from developing countries that it believes are linked to Chinese ownership.