The world is experiencing complicated times and the two world superpowers have their backs turned and political tensions between China and the US are growing. After balloons, now submarine cables could be at the center of yet another dispute. The first casualty appears to be the ambitious Sea-Me-We 6 project.
- What is Sea-Me-We?
Sea-Me-We 6 is a high-speed fiber optic data transmission network that connects the European continent to the Asian continent, via the African continent. The acronym “Sea-Me-We” stands for “South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe”.
Sea-Me-We 6 is one of the latest undersea communications networks offering telecommunications services to businesses, internet service providers and other organizations around the world. The network provides a shorter and more reliable alternative route for transferring data between Europe, Asia and Africa compared to other existing undersea communication networks.
The work will connect Singapore to France and will have a 120 Tbps bandwidth. Once completed, it will be 19.200 km long. The project started in early 2022. It is expected to start operating in the first quarter of 2025.
The cost of the project is around 500 million USD.
- Tensions between China and the US move from the air to the bottom of the sea
China took a step back from the Sea-Me-We 6 submarine cable project, according to the Financial Times, which reports a complex scenario – marked by tensions between Washington and Beijing, for which the technology sector is by no means indifferent – two of the main telecommunications groups of the Asian giant decided to withdraw from the initiative.
As always, when two powers are in the spotlight, the impact of their decisions goes far beyond the infrastructure itself and opens up a new geostrategic “war”.
In this sense, it is important to understand the details.
- So what happened?
China has significantly reduced its stake in Sea-Me-We 6, an undersea network cable project aimed at linking Asia with Western Europe. To be precise, two of its major telecom groups, China Telecom and China Mobile, decided to withdraw their combined 20% investment last year.
The consortium behind the infrastructure recognizes that the participation of Chinese companies is “important”, but later qualifies: “but not critical”.
This change in attitude results from the Sea-Me-We-6 consortium's change in strategy. The organization that included Microsoft, Orange and Telecom Egypt, opted for the American company subcom to build the line instead of Hengtong Marine, the largest manufacturer of electrical cables and optical fibers in the Asian giant.
China Unicom, a much smaller state-owned company, would remain with an undisclosed stake. The information was advanced this week by the Financial Times after contacting various sources close to the project and its developments.
With more people working and living remotely, it will help all parties to provide faster broadband access to users along this multi-regional data superhighway.
Said Yue Meng Fai of the Sea-Me-We 6 management committee.
Construction has already started and the goal is to have it completed and ready to go into operation by the first quarter of 2025, linking several countries in Asia and Europe through Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India, Pakistan, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
- the breaking point
Well, the disinterest of the Chinese appeared after SubCom, based in the USA, announced last year that it had an agreement with the Sea-Me-We 6 consortium and even started its implementation. The company announced at the time that it would use the SL17-SDM cable, which supports up to 24 pairs of fibers (FP) and that the project would be divided into three segments: a submarine from Tuas (Singapore) to Ras Ghareb (Egypt), another terrestrial to Port Said (Egypt) and a third also submerged that will extend to Marseille, France.
At that time, the international consortium included BSCCL, Bharti Airtel, Dhirragu, Djibout Telecom, Mobily, Orange, Singtel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telin, TM and TWA.
In addition to the trade war, the latest “chip war”, as well as tensions arising from the conflicts in Ukraine and Taiwan, just a few days ago there was the shock caused by the detection – and subsequent shooting down – of an alleged Chinese spy balloon in Montana. The episode nearly “in extremis” thwarted what would have been the first visit by a senior US administration official to China in years.
- But is Sea-Me-We 6 cable important?
AND. Like the hundreds of other similar submarine cables that connect continents to the Grid, this is a strategic infrastructure. And precisely for this reason it can be affected by national security. According to the Financial Times, around 95% of all intercontinental internet traffic, including data, video calls and email, is channeled through more than 400 submarine cables stretching 1,4 million kilometers. This function also gives a fundamental role to your stations.
Is this the first time this has happened? Sea-Me-We 6 is not the first project of its kind to be marked by geopolitics. In 2020, the administration of Donald Trump was considering veto the section of the Pacific Light submarine cable between its territory and Hong Kong for fear that China could steal data from it. Nor is he the first to clearly highlight the strategic importance of these cables.
The risk that worries experts is that mutual suspicions between Beijing and Washington lead to a decoupling of infrastructure, with American and Chinese companies investing in different systems.
