Sweden criticizes China for denying full access to a ship suspected of damaging the Baltic Sea cable

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Sweden has sharply criticized China for refusing to allow the Nordic country’s top explorer to board a Chinese ship suspected of cutting two cables in the Baltic Sea.

The Yi Peng 3 sailed from its berth in international waters between Denmark and Sweden on Saturday, and appears to be heading for Egypt after Chinese investigators boarded the ship on Thursday.

The Chinese team had allowed representatives from Sweden, Germany, Finland and Denmark to board the ship as observers, but denied them access to Henrik Söderman, Sweden’s public prosecutor, according to Stockholm officials.

“It is something that the government takes seriously. It is amazing that the ship is sailing without the prosecutor being given the opportunity to inspect the ship and question the crew within the framework of the Swedish criminal investigation,” the foreign official said. country Maria Malmer Stenergard said comments given to the Financial Times.

The Swedish government was put pressure on the Chinese authorities for a major carrier to leave international waters for Swedish territory to allow a full investigation into the outage of Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German data cables last month.

People close to the investigation said Thursday’s boarding of the boat showed little doubt that it was involved in the incident.

Yi Peng 3 is owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, a one-ship company based near the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo. Ningbo representative Yipeng told the FT in November that “the government has asked the company to cooperate with the investigation”, but did not answer further questions.

There is a divide among countries over the motivation to cut cords. Some people close to the investigation say they believe it was a rogue vessel that may have caused the Yi Peng 3’s anchor to drag under the sea in the Baltic Sea.

However, other governments have said privately that they suspect Russia was responsible for the damage and may have paid the crew.

The loss of two cables was the second time in 13 months that a Chinese ship has damaged infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The The new Polar BearA Chinese cargo ship damaged a gas pipeline in October 2023 by dragging its anchor a long way down the Baltic Sea during a storm. The authorities reacted slowly to the incident, allowing the ship to leave the area without stopping, something they had intended to prevent in the case of the Yi Peng 3.

Nordic and Baltic officials are skeptical about the possibility of the same thing happening twice in quick succession. A Baltic minister said: “The Chinese must be really terrible rulers if this continues to happen innocently.