China seeks to control Asian subsea cable systems; SJC2 delayed, Apricot and Echo avoid South China Sea
Several offshore Asian subsea cable systems have been delayed and, in some cases, re-routed because of Chinese efforts to exert control over them. The Financial Times (paywall) reported Tuesday:
China has begun to impede projects to lay and maintain subsea internet cables through the South China Sea, as Beijing seeks to exert more control over the infrastructure transmitting the world’s data.long delays in approvals permitting and stricter Chinese requirements” have driven cable builders to design routes that avoid the South China Sea.
Long approval delays and stricter Chinese requirements, including permits for work conducted outside its internationally recognised territorial waters, have pushed companies to design routes that avoid the South China Sea, according to multiple sources inside the industry.
China has asserted the right to approve cable construction outside its 12-mile exclusive zone, applying its ‘nine dash-line‘ claim that covers almost the entire sea and has been rejected by all its neighbors.
One of the most prominent projects affected is the 10,500 km Singapore-Japan Cable 2 (SJC2), which has been delayed by more than a year because of Chinese objections and lengthy permit issues – despite the fact that China Mobile International is a consortium partner.
Two new cables being built from Singapore to the U.S. via Japan have been redesigned to avoid the South China Sea by circling around Indonesia. The Apricot cable system, backed by Google, Facebook and several Asian telcos, and the Google- and Facebook-invested Echo, are being built on new paths that are much more expensive design because of the additional length and the need for extra sheathing in the shallower waters.
- Apricot subsea cable system is a 12,000-kilometer subsea cable connecting Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, and Singapore. NTT is responsible for operating and managing three cable landing stations for the Apricot cable system: Minamiboso CLS in Japan, Tuas CLS in Singapore and a cable landing station in Indonesia. PLDT will build new cable landing stations in Luzon and Mindanao as part of the Apricot cable system.
- Echo will run from Eureka, California to Singapore, with a stop-over in Guam, with plans to also land in Indonesia. It will be the first-ever cable to directly connect the U.S. to Singapore with direct fiber pairs over an express route. It will decrease latency for users connecting to applications running the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) regions in the area, home to some of the world’s most vibrant financial and technology centers.
‘Nine-dash-line’ used by China to show the maximum extent of its claimed territorial waters:
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References:
https://www.ft.com/content/89bc954d-64ed-4d80-bb8f-9f1852ec4eb1
https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/intra-asia/apricot
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/introducing-the-echo-subsea-cable
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