Is China conducting ‘gray zone’ warfare for Russia?

In October 2023, damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia knocked it out for six months. Suspicion quickly fell upon a Chinese-owned, Hong Kong-flagged container ship called the Newnew Polar Bear.

Now the South China Morning Post has reported that the Chinese government agrees the anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear severed the pipeline. Chinese authorities add that the damage was accidental and resulted from stormy weather.

That Beijing is taking ownership of this incident is a significant and unambiguously good development. But its full significance may go deeper – and darker.

Beijing generally does not like to admit to its mistakes. The PRC often has preferred to stand on implausible counter-explanations rather than admit fault.

In the infamous 2001 aerial collision incident off Hainan Island, the Chinese government asserted that a relatively nimble Chinese J-8 fighter jet was the victim of sudden, aggressive maneuvering by a US EP-3 – a lumbering, four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft.

Amid a 2011 spate of incidents in disputed areas of the South China Sea in which Chinese vessels harassed Vietnamese oil exploration ships by cutting the cables that towed their survey equipment, in one case the PRC government claimed a Chinese crew cut the cable in self-defense due to aggressive maneuvering by the survey vessel.

China’s admission of responsibility for damaging the Balticconnector is best understood not as an indication of PRC interest in transparency, but rather a case of Beijing deciding it’s counterproductive to continue denying in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

As an example, PRC officials denied for years that Beijing had a serious air pollution problem, even claiming the