America suddenly takes action against undersea cables! The "internet cutoff war" is about to break out, and China must be vigilant

U.S. Senate bipartisan lawmakers have jointly introduced the "Undersea Cable Protection Act," requiring the establishment of a global monitoring system and strengthening military response mechanisms. It's obvious to everyone that this is aimed at whom—Senator Curtis directly named China, claiming that the PLA might cut undersea cables in future conflicts.

More intriguingly, these politicians are simultaneously advancing the "Taiwan International Solidarity Act," clearly intending to launch a "combination punch" on the Taiwan Strait issue.

Let's first explain how important undersea cables are. 97% of international data transmission globally relies on undersea fiber optic cables, and the waters around Taiwan are the vital communication artery of East Asia.

America suddenly highlights "protecting cables," which on the surface is responding to so-called "11 incidents of interruption," but actually conceals threefold calculations:

First, it pre-embeds an excuse for military intervention in the Taiwan Strait, and in the future, any cable incident can be blamed on China;

Second, it expands its military presence in the Western Pacific under the guise of "infrastructure security";

Third, it internationalizes the Taiwan issue. You see, they specifically emphasize that UN Resolution 2758 "does not involve Taiwan's representation rights," which is dismantling the legal basis of "One China."

Washington's move is a textbook example of a "noble strategy." Republican Senator Curtis and Democratic Senator Van Hollen have rarely worked together, and the House version of the bill was passed by an overwhelming vote of 356—this kind of bipartisan consensus is extremely unusual in the current polarized political environment in America.

The underlying logic is clear: the Pentagon warned last year that China's undersea combat capabilities have already threatened the U.S. military's "cross-domain advantage," and the "Pacific Deterrence Initiative" needs such legislation as a funding pretext. More insidiously, they deliberately conflate commercial cables with military facilities, so that any patrol ship can be portrayed as a "security threat."

China's countermeasures have had hints long before. The China Coast Guard has added specialized patrol fleets this year, and the new regulations in the South China Sea that took effect in July explicitly require foreign vessels to report underwater operations—these have been deliberately interpreted by the U.S. as "evidence of threats."

But looking at it from another angle, if the U.S. really worries about cable safety, why did it refuse to join the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea? Why do its reconnaissance ships frequently conduct hydrological surveys near China's coast? This "only allowing officials to light fires" trick we have already experienced in the South China Sea arbitration case.

Taiwan is destined to be a tragic player in this game. When the Taiwanese authorities cheer for "American support," they probably forgot that in the "Blue Whale" cable ship incident, the U.S. military evacuated the Taiwanese repair team first.

What the U.S. wants is not to ensure freedom of communication, but to turn the Taiwan Strait into a "digital Malacca Strait," using optical cables as a gate to control the flow of data in East Asia.

The endgame of this confrontation may be more brutal than imagined. The U.S. is turning undersea cables into a "digital nuclear button," and in the future, any slight movement in the Taiwan Strait could allow them to stage a "cable-cutting event" themselves, then intervene militarily under the pretense of "maintaining the global internet."

Our real defense is not underwater, but whether we can achieve a breakthrough in next-generation technologies such as 6G and quantum communication—because when data transmission no longer depends on physical fiber optic cables, these carefully set "underwater traps" will naturally become scrap metal.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1838407059577031/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.