THE $500 MILLION Deepwater INTERNET CABLE THAT CHINA PLANS TO RIVAL THE US.
A $500 million undersea fiber-optic internet cable network connecting Asia, the Middle East, and Europe is being developed by state-owned Chinese telecom companies to compete with a similar U.S.-backed project, according to four persons engaged in the arrangement. The strategy is a warning that an escalating digital conflict between Beijing and Washington runs the risk of rupturing the web's infrastructure.
According to the four people with direct knowledge of the plan, China's three major carriers, China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited, and China United Network Communications Group Co Ltd (China Unicom) are developing one of the most cutting-edge and extensive subsea cable networks in the world. The proposed cable, known as EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), would connect Hong Kong to the Chinese province of Hainan before winding its way to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and France, according to the four persons. They requested anonymity since they were forbidden from talking about potential trade secrets.
The people added that China's HMN Technologies Co Ltd, a rapidly expanding cable company whose parent company was majority-owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, would construct and lay the cable, which would cost about $500 million to complete. They claimed that the Chinese government would provide financial aid to HMN Tech, which is majority owned by the Hengtong Optic-Electric Co Ltd, a company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Requests for comment from China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, HMN Tech, and Hengtong went unanswered. Without explicitly addressing the EMA cable proposal, the Chinese foreign ministry stated in a statement to Reuters that it "has long welcomed Chinese firms to carry out international investment and collaboration."
The announcement of the cable comes after a Reuters article last month that detailed how the U.S. government has successfully stopped several Chinese underwater cable projects abroad over the past four years out of worry that Beijing could be listening in on internet traffic. The United States and Hong Kong, a territory of China, would have been connected by planned private undersea cables, including initiatives sponsored by Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc., and Amazon.com Inc.
More than 95% of all international internet traffic travels on submarine cables. For many years, consortia of telecom and technology corporations have held these high-speed channels, pooling their resources to create these enormous networks that enable seamless data transfer throughout the globe. Yet, in an intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, these cables—which are susceptible to eavesdropping and sabotage—have evolved into weapons of influence. The superpowers are competing for control of cutting-edge technology that will likely determine economic and military dominance in the coming decades.
According to a State Department official, the United States supports a free, open, and secure internet. Without identifying HMN Tech or China, the spokesman stated that nations should prioritize security and privacy by "completely eliminating untrustworthy vendors" from wireless networks, terrestrial and undersea cables, satellites, cloud services, and data centers. When asked if it will launch a campaign to convince international telcos not to take part in the EMA cable project, the State Department did not comment.
The United States "violation of established international rules" regarding undersea cable cooperation, the Chinese foreign ministry stated in a statement. The statement claimed that the United States "should stop creating and spreading rumors about so-called 'data monitoring activities' and stop smearing and defaming Chinese firms."
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