A Chinese-owned cargo ship suspected of damaging a subsea telecoms cable off Taiwan has stopped transmitting its location on the high seas, Taiwan's coast guard said Tuesday.

A Chinese-owned vessel is suspected of severing an undersea cable off the Taiwanese coast recently, according to authorities on the island. Taiwan’s coast guard requested that the cargo ship return to shore for an investigation,

Taiwan suspects China of being behind damage to a crucial subsea communications cable just off its northern coast, which occurred last week.

Taiwan has accused a Chinese-owned ship of severing a critical data cable off its northern coast on Friday. Officials in Taipei discovered that four cores of an international submarine cable, which transmits data to America’s AT&T, were left ruptured early on Jan 3.

More evidence of Beijing’s liking for gray zone warfare, or a murky claim with odd African entanglements? Taiwanese authorities have asserted that a China-linked ship entered its waters and damaged a submarine cable.

The incident caused only minimal disruption of service but sent a message about the vulnerability of the island and its internet.

Taiwan has asked South Korea for assistance investigating a Chinese-owned ship suspected of cutting a subsea cable off its northern coast on Friday. Taiwan telecoms operator Chunghwa Telecom and the Taiwan Coast Guard said on Saturday that the cargo vessel Shunxing39 was believed to have caused damage to a communications cable — close to the port of Keelung on Taiwan’s north coast — on the morning of January 3.