Hong Kong, March 24 (ANI): Not only is Chairman Xi Jinping constantly pushing the People's Liberation Army (PLA) towards devotee levels of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, but he is ensuring that China's military is equipped with all manner of weapons and gadgets to ensure dominance in both peacetime and wartime.

The latest revelation concerns a deep-sea submersible-borne device that is designed to cut seabed communication cables. The news was broken by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper, which is regularly a mouthpiece for propaganda that China wishes to announce.

Undersea communication and internet cables are critical to globally connecting far-flung parts of the world. Russian and Chinese vessels have made a habit of damaging or severing such cables in places like the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan respectively. For example, Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration detained the Togolese-flagged cargo vessel Hong Tai 58 on 25 February, crewed by Chinese sailors, for allegedly damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan to the Penghu Islands near the Chinese coast.

This shadowy Hong Tai vessel has operated under various names and registrations, and it is suspected of deliberately tampering with the cable in aid of China's 'gray zone' tactics of coercing and harassing Taiwan. Lin Jian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said he was 'unfamiliar with the incident' and unsurprisingly he asserted that it was unrelated to Chinese actions.

A similar incident had happened north of Taiwan at the hands of a Hong Kong-owned ship in January. Earlier, in 2023, Chinese vessels twice disrupted communication cables connecting Taiwan's mainland to the Matsu Islands. As a result, in the face of such deliberate provocation, Taiwan is attempting to boost the resilience of its communications network.

It was of particular interest that, just a few weeks after Hong Tai was seized, the world was informed that China had developed this deep-sea tool 'capable of severing the world's most fortified underwater communication or power lines,' according to the South China Morning Post. It can operate underwater at depths of up to 4km, which is twice the range of current subsea communication infrastructure, and it can integrate with existing Chinese submersibles.

The compact device was developed by the state-owned China Ship Scientific Research Centre and its affiliated State Key Laboratory of Deep-sea Manned Vehicles. It can cut through communication cables protected by steel, rubber and polymer sheaths. Not only is China bragging about its new invention, it has secured a trade patent for it too. The tool had first been revealed in the Chinese-language journal Mechanical Engineer on 24 February, in an article entitled 'Design of an Electric Cutting Device for Deep-Sea Cables'.

The article said the device was designed for civilian salvage and seabed mining, but its dual-use utility is obvious. Indeed, as the Hong Kong article posited, '...Cutting cables near strategic chokepoints such as Guam, which is a linchpin of the US military's Second Island Chain, a defense strategy used to contain China, the tool could essentially destabilize global communications during a geopolitical crisis.'

Indeed, such devices could cripple communications worldwide and help cut off Taiwan from the rest of the world if the PLA decides to invade its peaceable neighbor. One of China's priorities in major hostilities - such as a naval blockade or a full-blown invasion - would be to isolate Taiwan from the rest of the world and to interfere with civilian and military communications.

A second new invention from some of China's sharpest military engineering minds is a family of self-propelled landing barges, or landing bridges, designed to help military vehicles and supplies move rapidly from ship to shore. Essentially a floating and movable pier system, their existence was exposed in satellite imagery dating from January 2025.

Professor Andrew Erickson, Professor of Strategy at the US Naval War College, warned, 'Make no mistake: China's new bridge-barges are purpose-built for a Taiwan invasion scenario. They embody the seriousness with which the PRC under Xi is pursuing control and absorption of Taiwan by any and all means possible.'

Just as the Allies constructed innovative Mulberry Harbors to support their armies after the D-Day invasion of June 1944, and flummoxed German defense planners by not requiring the capture of a port city early on in the campaign, so China has come up with a new solution for getting vehicles ashore following an amphibious invasion.

These under-construction bridge barges were first spotted by American analyst Tom Shugart at Guangzhou Shipyard International. Six such vessels exist, with the distinct possibility of more appearing.

The next revelation regarding these new systems came in mid-March when these bridge barges were spotted, and photographed, taking part in a PLA exercise on a beach in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, close to the PLA's Southern Theater Command Navy Headquarters. By combining several vessels in a line, a causeway up to 820m long can be constructed, permitting ships - whether civilian roll-on/roll-off or naval amphibious types - to dock at up to five berths and to offload vehicles that drive along the bridge straight onto the shore.

Erickson explained, 'The innovative Shuiqiao platform, for which there is currently no international parallel or obvious commercial use, may represent the missing piece in the puzzle for China to be able to attempt to deploy ferry-delivered, follow-on forces in support of an amphibious assault to the most advantageous locations along Taiwan's coastline, and thereby be able to utilize commercial ships without holding a port. A single ship can extend over key obstacles and other hazards. Connecting multiple ships in end-to-end configuration, preliminary efforts at which have now been observed, could offer a lengthy bridge indeed.'

As Erickson observed, an advantage of the system is that the bridge can extend inland, bypassing often treacherous sand or shingle beach slopes or even seawalls. These vessels have up to eight spuds, or legs, that are jacked down into the seabed to hold the bridge in position. This kind of arrangement is more practical that the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) system used by the US military. Readers may remember that the USA set up a JLOTS in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but it failed after being battered by a storm.

After nearly a quarter of a century of research and development, China has apparently learned lessons from the American JLOTS solution, which has been around sometime. China's pre-built, specialist vessels are more robust, and they ensure follow-on forces can flow in rapidly after a contested beach landing has taken place. A combined-arms battalion with 150 vehicles may take anywhere from 40-60 minutes to come ashore. Erickson continued: 'The Shuiqiao-185, Shuiqiao-135, Shuiqiao-110 - so named for their hull length (bridge stowed), as measured in open-source commercial imagery -are not multirole platforms like aircraft carriers, but rather a dedicated platform for landing high volumes of wheeled and tracked military vehicles on beaches. There are no other such platforms anywhere in the world, because no other country than China is preparing to try to be able to invade Taiwan.' When deployed, the shortest unit is closest to the beach, and the longest one is farthest out to sea.

Although the occasional commentator has posited that these amphibious assets are designed to support humanitarian aid in the wake of a disaster, Erickson was dismissive of such an idea. 'There is no need to resort to such unique platforms for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, which is not opposed by hostile shore-based forces. China under Xi would not waste resources of such a specialized, dedicated system if it were not bore-sighted on taking Taiwan by threat, or use, of force.'

Their existence poses formidable challenges for Taiwanese defense planners. There were only ever a limited number of beaches around Taiwan - approximately a dozen - where a major amphibious landing was feasible. This is due to terrain and beach conditions.

However, with these new devices, the PLA can expand the number of potential landing sites for an invasion. This forces Taiwan's military to increase the number of locations it must defend in force, complicating their planning and defenses. In March, the US Naval War College published a report called 'Bridges over Troubled Waters: Shuiqiao Class' that examined these new inventions. Authored by the aforementioned Shugart and J. Michael Dahm, they commented, 'In the context of rapidly expanding military capabilities and infrastructure across the PLA, this newest logistics capability is further evidence of the PLA's efforts to meet Chairman Xi Jinping's reported mandate to have military capabilities necessary to conduct a large-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2027.'

This shallow-draft landing system is not a perfect solution, however. As the report noted, 'While these landing barges help address a critical PLA requirement, they may create additional problems for the PLA in terms of amphibious landing throughput. That is, the potential volume created by the barges may result in challenges moving equipment and materiel out of a landing area in highly restricted and potentially contested terrain on Taiwan.'

As a cautionary tale, remember the 35-mile-long traffic jam that Russia created when it invaded Ukraine, where transport ground to a halt since there were only a few viable roads leading to Kyiv. The report elaborated: 'Taiwan's mountainous terrain, tunnels and bridges leave the PLA with few viable routes to Taiwan's capital, Taipei, and will potentially funnel the PLA into intersecting fields of fire from Taiwan defenders.'

The first three Shuiqiao-class barge-bridges are not yet operational, as the PLA will continue to test them. Nonetheless, worryingly, the report's authors warned, 'Considering these landing barges in the context of other developments related to amphibious operations suggests the PLA may have significantly advanced its timetable to have sufficient capabilities to conduct a large-scale cross-strait operation against Taiwan in accordance with Xi Jinping's 2027 centennial military building goal.'

Xi is serious about conquering Taiwan, whether by gray zone tactics or outright violence. As seen with the above two examples of a deep-sea cable-cutting tool and clever barge bridges, China is putting its considerable technological expertise to use developing both weapons and supporting equipment to enable the PLA to perform nefarious missions.

By capturing Taiwan, Xi would accomplish what not even the legendary Mao Zedong could do. It would leave Xi an immortal legacy, something that strongmen like Xi and Russian Vladimir Putin hanker after. More than that, it would set up China for greater expansion. By smashing the First island Chain - which stretches from Japan to Malaysia via Taiwan - China would have free and easy access deep into the Pacific Ocean and the ability to cut off places like Japan and Australia.

What would it also say about China's and the USA's relative strengths? If China can conquer Taiwan, it would underscore how emasculated the USA has become, and that not even the American nuclear arsenal could thwart China. It would instantly alter the calculus in capitals all around Asia and beyond. The message would be that the USA is an unreliable and weak ally, and that it is utterly useless to resist China. The USA would be finished as a global power, which is exactly what China wishes to accomplish. (ANI)