The West has a plan to prevent China and Russia from accessing underwater data transmission channels

The initiative is reminiscent of attempts to oust China from the 5G infrastructure.
The United States, European Union governments and other allied states are developing a plan to strengthen the security of submarine cable networks, which includes ousting Chinese suppliers from the projects, Politico reports.

The USA is preparing the “New York joint statement”, which, according to the publication, they plan to sign this month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on September 22-25. EU countries are expected to join the commitment.

Countries that sign the joint statement will require network operators to implement supply chain security and data protection measures, and to share information in the event of incidents.

The New York declaration is an attempt to buy submarine cable networks from companies from allied countries, an echo of Western efforts in past years to push Chinese companies out of 5G infrastructure. 

Concerns about equipment from China is based on the fear that fast-growing Chinese suppliers will take over the market. 

While the list of competitors in submarine cable laying projects is extensive, the main battle is often between US provider SubCom, Europe's Alcatel Submarine Networks (owned by Nokia) and China's HMN Tech, as well as other companies such as Prysmian (Italy) and Nexans (France). Japanese NEC and Chinese ZTT. HMN Tech is one of the fastest growing companies on the market. It was known as Huawei Marine Networks until 2020, when it was absorbed by the Hengtong Group and rebranded.

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Control over the supply chain means the West will depend on technology that China could stop supplying at any time, or suppliers could be ordered by the Chinese government to disrupt the cables. 

The draft statement said that signatory countries will promote “reliable and proven components and services”.

In addition, they plan to encourage providers of submarine cable network services as well as operation and maintenance services to have transparent ownership, partnership and corporate governance structures – a complaint often associated with Chinese technology firms with opaque structures or ties to affiliates with the government and organizations.

The EU is undergoing an internal process of obtaining permission from the national governments of the member countries to sign a statement at the UN meeting.

According to the consultant Hanbury Strategy  By Christian von Stamm Jonasson, underwater infrastructure is a vulnerable area that the industry is looking to fix. In his opinion, the details need to be “carefully worked out in order not to create unnecessary trade barriers”.

Communication cables transmit huge flows of data around the world and are important for the functioning of the world economy. But they are also vulnerable to the threat of data being intercepted directly from the cables themselves (although this is difficult and expensive), sabotage (when cables are cut or otherwise damaged), and supply chain disruptions.

Russia has been reported to take participation in disrupting the operation of these networks since 2014. American officials recently told CNN that they have recently recorded even more alarming Russian activity.