The Gulf of Finland gas pipeline and the small scraps of information about it shared by China are of interest in the Far East, Asian correspondent Mika Hentunen writes.
Mika HentunenAsian correspondent
BEIJING The general public in Finland and Estonia has been waiting ten months for information on why the Chinese-owned cargo ship Newnew Polar Bear damaged a gas pipeline and data cable in the Gulf of Finland.
A Hong Konger of the South China Morning Post according to information, a memorandum defining China’s position on the matter is now circulating in the Chinese ministries in Beijing.
According to the newspaper, China would admit that the anchor that fell from the cargo ship at least damaged the gas pipe. However, China would deny that the act was intentional. The anchor plowing the seabed would have fallen in a storm.
The information was obtained by that magazine. Other media have not seen the memo and the authorities have not yet confirmed the information. Not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Justice of China, nor the criminal police of Finland and Estonia. The investigation is ongoing.
However, even small bits of information are also of interest in China’s neighboring regions. If China really admitted that its cargo ship had damaged cables in the Gulf of Finland, it would shed new light on a similar event off Taiwan’s Matsu Island in the winter of 2023.
A Chinese fishing vessel, possibly two vessels, dropped anchor in the Taiwan Strait and damaged the submarine cable from Taiwan to Matsu Island.
Taiwan has in vain demanded an explanation from China.
China has not promised anything to Taiwan. When I visited Taipei last December, the local authorities responsible for the matter already thought it a bit of a surprise that China had promised to help in solving the case in the Gulf of Finland.
Ironically, they thought that since China, contrary to its customs, has promised to help, it will probably gladly offer to lay a new cable and gas pipeline to the Gulf of Finland.
There are no signs of that. According to media reports, Estonia would have been pained by the scarcity and slowness of the Chinese in sharing information. They should have information about the Newnew Polar Bear, which returned to China late last year after its ill-fated trip to Russia.
Chinese authorities have remained tight-lipped after the country’s foreign ministry roundly promised to help with the investigation.
The representatives of the shipping company of the accident ship have not answered their phones or emails. At the time of the accident, the Newnew Polar Bear was owned by the Chinese Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co. Ltd. -shipping company.
The shipping company operating in the province of Hainan in southern China was founded in 2022. The shipping company has said that it specializes in its container transports on the northern routes of Russia.
It bought Newnew Polar Bear in June of last year for 9.3 million dollars, or a good 8.5 million euros. It made its first container transport between Shanghai and St. Petersburg in China a month later.
On its second long journey to St. Petersburg, the ship then plowed the bottom of the Gulf of Finland with its anchor.