It need not be an adversary, these cables are just laid across the seabed aren't they? Uncaring dragnet fishermen could be a potential culprit. God knows they cause enough damage to everything else down there.

Or as other commenters say, all three cables terminate in one city, so it could be a problem there.

I had the same reaction, but it looks like they might not be independent [1]. There's also this remark in the article:

> Undersea internet cable problems are not rare in Vietnam, which early last year saw all of its five cables disrupted for weeks.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40711934

Probably sharks as someone else already posted. But could be backhoes; backhoes hate the internet.

Too specific, backhoes are opportunistic predators of any and all utilities.

There could be a common cause (all 3 cables terminate in the same city, could follow a similar path where a single event/failure occurred, etc.).

Another possibility is that these cables provided an ideal training environment to test the capabilities of an adversary to cut off a region from the rest of the world. I'd think an adversary in wartime would cut all 5 cables. Vietnam could be the victim of an aggressor who just wants to practice/prove capabilities without much fear of repercussions.

I don't know who would benefit from crippling Vietnam's internet infrastructure today, but it could still benefit another nation to see/prove that it could.

Sharks https://www.vedantu.com/blog/why-are-sharks-attacking-marine...

Damn. Sharks vs Vietnam was not on my list, but it sounds like a great movie waiting to happen

In Vietnam, which seems to have internet “problems due to undersea cables” several times per year, it’s always “sharks”.

Which is just code for “the government is doing it intentionally”.

These “problems” seem to coincide with major political events.

These things happen. A couple of months ago there were major problems. East Africa to Europe comms because of multiple failures. Not everything is a conspiracy or enemy actio. Sometimes it’s just bad luck.

That said, undersea cables do make a great gray warfare target.

Tons of area to effect a break, and only need to break at a single point.

Attribution is difficult due to most of the sea being unwatched by most countries.

Economic impact, so less likely to result in escalation even if attributed.

Commercial shipping breaks cables all the time, so excellent plausible deniability.

End result: "a shame if something happened" situations like that Russian trawler doing back and forths across a Norwegian link.

Why the down votes? It's a fair question to ask. It's not like we all know about the undersea cables in Vietnam, and the volume of the problem makes it plausible it'd be a state actor. It's OK to ask questions.

China

Unless China is suddenly preparing for another invasion of Vietnam, not sure what the value would be in doing such a thing.

You don’t need to invade to exert control and one way to do so is limiting communications.