PRISCILLA TOMAZ AND JULIA VOO
The Asia-Pacific has one of the world's greatest concentrations of publicly disclosed submarine cables, the highest rate of active volcanoes and earthquakes, and some of the busiest shipping and fishing lanes. In February 2022, the Matsu Islands, an archipelago governed by Taiwan, had its two cables cut by Chinese vessels. Beyond limited backup service, its population of 11,800 people was entirely cut off from the internet for 50 days. While there was no evidence that the damage was inflicted intentionally, since 2017 the Matsu Islands’ cables have been disrupted 30 times, and at least a third of those disruptions were caused by Chinese vessels.
Investment in cable maintenance, however, lags behind the boom in new cable systems that has taken place over the past decade and is insufficient to address the frequency of cable disruptions. Cables are a critical component of physical cyberspace, carrying 99% of the internet. And yet, when cables break – which is every other day on average, globally – the world’s cable owners have access to only a limited number of repair ships.
In 2023, the disconnect between demand and supply for maintenance ships meant that repair times averaged 40 days. Between perceived Chinese encroachment in the region, the complex national regulations that control the authorisation of repairs, and the crippled state of the cable-maintenance industry, cables are both a boon and an inescapable vulnerability for Asia-Pacific states.
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