Regarding the "decoupling" between China and the United States, foreign media have been hyping it for a long time. No matter how US government officials explain that they do not seek "decoupling", do not want to start a "new cold war", but only want to "reduce risks", we see that all the actions of the US government and Congress are "decoupling" and launching a "new cold war".
For American politicians, we should never listen to what they say, but rather watch what they do. Recently, in an area that has not been noticed by the public, signs of "decoupling" have also begun to appear: the submarine cable industry. The US Foreign Policy website published an article pointing out that the Sino-US competition has begun to lead to the diversion of key submarine Internet cables, which could have major geopolitical consequences.
One fact that has not received much attention from netizens is that 95% of the cross-Chinese and data communication traffic in our world is transmitted through submarine cables, which are extremely important to the economies of most countries. In the period of relative political calm in the world, operators of submarine optical cables do not have to worry about geopolitical issues, and the decade after the end of the Cold War just caught up with the great development of the Internet, resulting in the Baltic Sea, Mediterranean, North Sea, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, South China Sea and other waters have been laid with submarine cables.
With the advancement of technology, today's submarine Internet cables do not need to be constantly patrolled and repaired. The operation of these submarine cables is often jointly invested by multinational enterprises. For example, the FLAG North Asia Ring Road, which connects China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan Province of China, is owned by three companies in India, Hong Kong and Australia; The Taiwan Straits Express-1 connecting Taiwan and Chinese mainland is jointly operated by China Mobile, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Yuanyitong, Taiwan International Gateway Corporation and Taiwan Mobile.
As the world continues to digitize, more submarine cables will be needed, and the number of submarine cables is expected to grow at a rate of around 30% per year in the coming years. Whether the relationship between different countries and regions is close can also be intuitively reflected through the distribution of submarine optical cables.
Therefore, submarine optical cables have actually become an important geopolitical indicator. So, when geopolitical problems arise, so do submarine cables: for example, the US government refuses to approve the four submarine cables that Google, Meta and Amazon plan to build to connect the United States and Hong Kong, citing "concerns about Chinese espionage through submarine cables."
As a result, the owners of the two planned submarine cables changed the terminations of the cables to Taiwan and the Philippines. Experts in the industry said, "When these plans are rejected by the US government, it is a financial disaster for the companies involved." "In the past few years, the Chinese government has also not approved several projects to cross the seabed of the South China Sea.
Foreign media believe that this is retaliation against the United States. The article on the Foreign Policy website believes that the current competition between China and the United States will not affect the submarine cable that has already been laid, but it is no longer possible to lay a new directly connected submarine cable between China and the United States, which is a kind of "decoupling".
As things stand, many of the ongoing new submarine cable projects may be diverted to connect only friendly countries and regions. For waters fraught with geopolitical risks, project owners may choose a more circuitous route or abandon the planned route altogether.
For example, it is unlikely that any submarine cable operator will now launch plans to connect Russia with the Baltic states. Similarly, the likelihood of U.S. companies participating in future lays of new submarine cables in the South China Sea is slim.
What we need to know is that Chinese companies have a high position in the submarine cable industry, just as Chinese companies have a high status in the 5G communication network industry. China Hengtong Optoelectronics is the world's top three submarine cable manufacturing and laying enterprises. China already has the advantages of the whole industrial chain such as manufacturing, laying equipment, operation and maintenance equipment of submarine optical cables. It is precisely because of this that the US government included four Chinese submarine cable companies in the "Entity List" in 2021 and began sanctions.
The fact that U.S. companies want to lay fiber optic cables on the bottom of the South China Sea involves not only the sovereignty of our exclusive economic zone and territorial waters, but also national security issues. Just as the United States doubts China, we also suspect that the United States will use submarine cables to ghost. For example, when laying submarine cables, quietly lay some hydrophones. Therefore, we will inevitably be very cautious about the actions of the US side. Because the United States has engaged in many similar actions, and there are many previous convictions.
At present, the consequences of these acts are not very serious. Although the data delay is slightly larger, the roundabout route can still work, and the connection between China and the United States is not broken. But with the advent of the 6G era, the maturity of metaverse, blockchain and other technologies has made the demand for digital bandwidth in the world economy grow exponentially.
As the two largest economies, if it is difficult to increase bandwidth between China and the United States, it will be very detrimental to the future development of both sides. Of course, the responsibility for this matter lies entirely in the United States.