“Invasion” boats and submarine cable cutters: China’s new military technology scares those who realize the subject

Above: A Planet Labs satellite photo shows three interconnected vessels and a roll-on/roll-off ship near the coast of the city of Zhanjiang, southern China, on March 24, 2025. Planet Labs PBC

Hong Kong/Taipei (CNN) – from a chain of huge vessels that extend from a Chinese beach to the sea, to a new and powerful project to cut underwater cables to record depths, China’s latest maritime innovations have caught the attention of defense experts – increasing concerns about their potential role in future invasion of Taiwan.

Although these new tools may have an ostensibly civil use, experts claim that they show the expansion of China’s military and technological capabilities – at a time when the Communist Party in power is increasing the pressure on Taiwan, the autonomous democracy that claims as their own and promised to conquer by force if necessary.

China already sends fighters and war ships close to the island almost daily and organizes increasingly frequent military exercises to intimidate what it calls “Taiwan’s separatist forces.”

However, Taiwan nervously assists Washington’s global relations by US President Donald Trump, with his “America First Mercantilist foreign policy, discarding decades from Europe and forcing long -time Asian allies and partners to pay more for US protection.

The images of the landing vessels first appeared – and then disappeared quickly – on Chinese social networks this month, showing three huge vessels parked off a sandy beach full of algae, fishing boats and a handful of dispersed tourists.

The three vessels were surfaced of the water, with robust feet, and were connected by bridges, forming a giant walkway that stretched from the beach to over 800 meters from the coast.

CNN geographically located the video on a public beach near Zhanjiang, a port town in Guangdong province, southern China, where is the headquarters of the Southern Chinese Navy. Satellite images confirmed its location, however.

Defense analysts J. Michael Dahm and Thomas Shugart stated that vessels constitute a “significant improvement” of the amphibious ability of the Popular Liberation Army (ELP) of China. In the case of an invasion of Taiwan, they could form a shifted pier, carrying large amounts of tanks, armored vehicles and other heavy equipment – once the superiority of fire is established.

“Innovation is really the volume that can potentially put on a remote beach or damaged port or in an austere landing area, probably in excess of hundreds of vehicles per hour if they wish,” Dahm explained, a renovated US Navy secret officer and resident senior member of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Shugart, the former American submarine and adjunct senior member of the center for new American security, noted that vessels join a growing list of innovative weapon platforms, ammunition and weapons systems that Chinese military has been tested in recent years.

“There is nothing like them in the West. I have never seen anything like what we are seeing here,” he said.

CNN contacted China’s Ministry of Defense to comment on the matter.

The Taiwan Ministry of Defense said it had evaluated that the new vessels were “designed with an extensible ramp to serve as an improvised dock, allowing the rapid unloading of the main battle tanks and various amphibious operations support vehicles.” The European Commission said it would continue to monitor vessels and evaluate their operational capabilities and limitations.

However, Chinese researchers from state -affiliated institutions said they had developed a powerful deepwater device: a cable cutter capable of cutting down lines of communication and energy strongly fortified to depths up to 4,000 meters – almost double the depth of the deeper submarine cable in the world.

The new project, published last month in the Chinese magazine Mechanical Engineer and first reported by South China Morning Post, comes at a time when concerns about the vulnerability of Taiwan’s critical infrastructures. Recently, suspicious damage to the island’s submarine cables fueled the fear that the Chinese were trying to undermine the island’s communications with the outside world.

Collin Koh, a researcher at the Singapore School of International Study (RSIS) International Study (RSIS), said that cable cutting tools are usually used for maintenance and that a breakthrough in the ability to cut cables with highly efficient record is not alarming by itself.

“But what is alarming here is the political context that is associated with it,” he noted, pointing to recent incidents of damage to submarine cables involving Chinese ships around Taiwan and the Baltic Sea.

The fear is that, in case of invasion, China can cut the submarine cables around Taiwan, sowing panic between the population and can disturb the island’s military communications with the US and other partners.

But Koh pointed out that the new cable cutting project may have existed so far only in the experimental phase. “If it has translated into an operational tool for use is a large question mark,” he said.

“Invasion” vessels

The video of the landing vessels offered the first look closely at what Naval News reported in January as “special and uncommon vessels” signed at the Guangzhou shipyard. The newspaper described them as a reminiscent of British Mulber Harbors, which were built for the invasion of Normandy by the Allies during World War II.

While some analysts suggest that vessels could serve for civil purposes, such as humanitarian aid, many experts – both inside and outside Taiwan – believe they were constructed mainly for military purposes.

Su tzu -yun, director of the Taiwan National Defense Security Investigation Institute, said vessels could offer the ELP a strategic advantage by creating improvised coastal landing points – especially if Taiwan destroys their own self -defense ports for an invasion.

“These vessels have six or eight hydralylic feet that can raise them from water to create a stable platform, and then they can create a shallow bridge to a deeper area,” Su.

Shugart, a former submarinist, said vessels could even launch a ramp through walls or other obstacles on a coastal road, allowing the Pla to send troops and equipment to the coast.

He added that vessels also increase operational speed. “We have seen them assembled, disassembled and assembled again several times in a matter of days,” said Shugart, citing satellite images.

However, due to their dimension and low speed, these vessels are highly vulnerable to enemy fire and would probably only be used as part of a second wave, following the initial landing forces through the narrow, which has about 80 miles wide at their tight point, experts say.

“Even before thinking about embarking a landing force and sending troops across the Strait (Taiwan), they would make sure they had taken the air, information and naval domain throughout the narrow,” said Shigart.

The vessels “would not be taken until the environment became safe for them, as in the D -Day of World War II, where the US had total control of air and sea before landing forces landing on land,” he added.

Collin, the expert of RSIS in Singapore, said that these vessels were not conceived for a high intensity war at sea.

“They are slow, they are not so well protected by themselves and require escorts that they must ride the same speed as vessels. And for some of the means of war, the speed is essential,” he said.

Days before the video of the vessels came up on Chinese social networks, Guangdong province maritime safety administration issued a warning prohibiting ships from entering a long and narrow water body due to “sea tests.” The geographical coordinates of the restricted zone coincide with the location of vessels confirmed by satellite images.

CNN contacted the Guangdong government agency for comments.

On March 21, the Maxer Technologies satellite satellite images showed that the balloons had moved about 15 kilometers to the south along the coast. The images also captured a Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO-RO) ferry beside the third and largest vessel, positioned further from the coast. Days later, a Planet Labs satellite image showed another RO-RO cargo ship approaching the same vessel on the opposite side.

According to Shugart, Chinese authorities may be testing the ability of vessels to interact with RO-RO civil ships, which could significantly increase the ELP maritime transport capabilities, allowing the rapid transfer of a large number of vehicles with wheels and caterpillars.

Conceived to transport a large number of vehicles to foreign markets, RO-RO ships have proliferated worldwide, but especially in China in recent years to satisfy the growing worldwide demand of Chinese electric vehicles. But Chinese military planners and state media have also taken a note of their double -use abilities to support the ELP operations.

In a 2021 military exercise, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV praised the Ro-RO ferries for allowing “large-scale implantation of complete land and sea units with immediate discharge and loading”. The images transmitted by the station showed rows of carefully aligned tanks inside such a vessel.

“These vessels can significantly improve the ELP’s ability to provide logistics after an invasion,” said Dahm, former US Navy secret services officer.

But he noted that they are only part of the ambition of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to modernize the ELP and turn it into an army of “world class.”

American authorities believe that Xi gave the ELP instructions to be ready to invade Taiwan until 2027, although they underlined that this does not mean that an invasion will occur by 2027.

“In the context of all the other improvements we are seeing in the capabilities of the ELP and, especially, in the ELP infrastructures, the vessels are just the brilliant object that draws attention to the fact that the ELP is making these preparations to be prepared to act according to Xi Jinping orders in the coming years, if it is called to do so,” Dahm explained.

CNN’s Wayne Chang contributed to this report.