Sweden is attempting to get this week’s most talked about ship to move into its territorial waters as a diplomatic standoff continues over a recent cable outage.
The Yi Peng 3, a 23-year-old panamax bulk carrier owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, has been linked to the severing of two data cables in the Baltic Sea earlier this month.
The ship has been at anchor in international waters at the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden for nearly a week with a German patrol boat and Swedish Coast Guard ship joining a Danish frigate keeping close proximity to the bulk carrier.
“From the Swedish side we have had contact with the ship and contact with China and said that we want the ship to move towards Swedish waters,” Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, told reporters today.
In October last year, a communication cable between Sweden and Estonia and a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia suffered damage caused by the Chinese-controlled NewNew Polar Bear containership.