China on Wednesday accused Taiwan's ruling party of having "deliberately hyped" an incident in which a Chinese-owned ship was suspected of damaging a subsea telecoms cable.

Taiwanese authorities this week said they were investigating a Chinese-owned cargo ship suspected of dragging its anchor over an international subsea telecoms cable northeast of the island.

"DPP authorities have ... out of thin air deliberately hyped the subsea cable incident as a so-called 'grey-zone threat' from the mainland, fully showing they will not let go of unscrupulous 'anti-China counter-China' tricks," state broadcaster CCTV quoted Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua as saying, referring to the island's ruling Democratic Progressive Party.