Technological competition between the United States and China is transforming the physical connections that make up the digital world and its governance. China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” eventually incorporated digital connectivity under the rubric Digital Silk Road in an effort to leverage Beijing’s technological footprint globally. By developing bilateral and multilateral cooperation in areas such as cross-border optical fibre networks, satellite tracking ground stations, data centres, 5G network services and other initiatives, China’s President Xi Jinping claims that the Digital Silk Road offers an inclusive digital economy for all.
But contrary to Xi’s claims, the expansion of undersea cable networks across the Indo-Pacific region under the Digital Silk Road offers distinct advantages to China far more than bridging digital gaps. This includes accessing a large pool of foreign data, facilitating the expansion of Chinese technology corporations in the region, and strengthening China’s influence over global technology standards regimes.
Chinese technology corporation Huawei Marine Networks (now rebranded as HMN Technologies) is at the forefront of advancing the construction of undersea cable networks in the Indo-Pacific. According to the Submarine Almanac report 2023, HMN Technologies was involved in 16 undersea cable projects, which are collectively worth US$1.6 billion, across 27 countries in the region. Another report from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) claims Beijing to have completed 11 undersea cable projects in Indonesia, seven in South Korea and six in the United Arab Emirates. In roughly the past decade, HMN Technologies has completed 108 projects laying down 60,000 kilometres of undersea cable, a total that is roughly one-and-a-half times the distance around Earth at the equator. Thanks to considerable patronage from the Chinese state, HMN Technologies has emerged as the fastest growing subsea cable builder over the past decade, ranking the company as the world’s fourth largest corporation involved in the submarine cable industry after SubCom (United States), Alcatel Submarine Network (France) and NEC (Japan).
Reuters news agency has also reported that another three of China’s big technology corporations – China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile – are investing US$500 million to build a subsea cable network traversing through Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
The expansion of Chinese companies in undersea cable networks would be less remarkable if not for simmering regional tension about China’s actions. Control over data transmission lines leads to inevitable concern about China’s potential to conduct military espionage activities, or for the cables themselves to become a point of contest.
In February last year, for example, Chinese vessels disrupted two undersea cables connected to Taiwan’s Matsu Island, leaving residents without internet connectivity. While the incident was said to be unintentional, it demonstrated China’s capability to harm Taiwan’s digital security in the event of military conflict. A Chinese vessel was also blamed for severing fibre optic cables in the Baltic sea last year.
China is acting to ensure its own connectivity. China has gained permanent access to landing stations across the Indo-Pacific, such as the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable, worth US$425 million, owned by China-ASEAN Information Harbor Co, PEACE Cable International Network and Telecom Egypt, spanning Pakistan, Egypt, Maldives, Cyprus, Seychelles and Djibouti. But these also provides a redundancy in case of disputes elsewhere, in particular the South China Sea. China, under the guise of its disputed nine-dash line claim, has already withheld permits for companies seeking undersea cable projects, such as the experience with Sea-Me-We.
The protection of undersea cables is a grey area under international law, and China has shown itself to be adept at exploiting the grey zone. It is important for the international community agree legal mechanisms to safeguard undersea cables, whether controlled by Chinese companies or any other.
