00:00Experts at a U.S. congressional hearing warned of Taiwan's network vulnerabilities from hostile undersea actions by China.
00:07Taiwan connects to the world through just 24 undersea cables.
00:13A prolonged disruption will not only inconvenience 23 million people,
00:18one estimate places the economic cost at 55 million per day
00:24before accounting for critical damage on global semiconductor supply chains.
00:31Xu, a former lawmaker in Taiwan's legislature,
00:34called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation for cooperation between Taipei and Washington on undersea cable defense.
00:40He also suggested establishing an Indo-Pacific-wide surveillance network.
00:45U.S. defense officials further highlighted the need for protecting underwater cables from outages.
00:50The cables are valuable and they're vulnerable, but networks themselves potentially can be resilient.
00:58Any part of any plan to protect cables need to include investing in a degree of redundancy
01:06and then the capability to quickly repair as well as lay new cables.
01:11Taiwan has increased penalties for cable sabotage after several high-profile cases in 2025.
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