Summary
Sweden has requested the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 to return to its waters to aid in investigating recent damage to undersea fiber-optic cables connecting Finland-Germany and Sweden-Lithuania, which occurred on Nov. 17-18.
While Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson has avoided direct accusations, Western intelligence suspects the Chinese vessel’s involvement, though opinions differ on whether the incidents were accidental or deliberate.
The ship remains under surveillance in Denmark’s economic zone.
Similar incidents in the Baltic Sea have raised concerns amid regional geopolitical tensions. China has pledged cooperation.
Why are they asking? They should be having the navy (either Sweden’s or Denmark’s) detain the ship.
The ship already is effectively detained. For the last week it’s been anchored in Danish waters surrounded by military vessels, at this very moment I count 5 German and 1 danish military/coast guard ships within a few km of of the Chinese Yi Peng 3. This article is basically just Sweden asking for the ship to be moved to their own waters so they can more easily investigate, the motivation being that the cable was damaged within Swedish maritime borders so they should be the ones leading the investigation.
Probably lack of evidence. Escalating without evidence will give China political leverage.