The new threat to the undersea cables keeping our internet going

A new Chinese tool capable of cutting the most fortified undersea data cable has stoked fears for the spider web of fibre-optic cables that are the lifeblood of the internet.

A Chinese engineering journal said the breakthrough tool, which would be deployed by a drone, is for civilian salvages. But the South China Morning Post reported that it "could shake up global maritime power dynamics".

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mentioned the risks facing subsea cables on his visit to India last week, while not referring to the Chinese tool.

"In the last few months, a new threat has emerged, with damage to critical infrastructure, like sub-sea cables."

Luxon said at post-Cabinet on Monday he did not know of the Chinese tool and was instead referring to the Baltics, where Finland and Sweden are investigating damage and the EU is stepping up sea patrols.

But the threat also showed the risk to the Pacific was no longer benign, Luxon said.

"It's something that we are aware of and it's a risk that we are are well aware of and a risk that we will look to manage as best we possibly can."

New Zealand recently endorsed a US statement on protecting cables that was issued with its allies at the United Nations, but most other countries did not sign up to it.

It was also lambasted by China.

The fact that the US advocates the signing of such an exclusive joint statement on undersea cables during the UNGA [United Nations General Assembly] says everything about its ill intention," China's Foreign Ministry responded.

"China firmly opposes the US turning undersea cables into a political and security issue."

The US has pressured countries not to use a Chinese cable-laying company, and its "clean network" initiative bans new cables directly connecting the the United States to China or Hong Kong.

A recent NATO report said: "Seabed warfare is no longer a distant concept: It represents an immediate and legitimate threat to allies."

Australia endorsed the US statement, and is also embedded in an Indo-Pacific cable alliance with the US, Japan and India that is developing undersea patrol drones.

New Zealand is not part of this arrangement.

The undersea fight, with accompanying calls to build fleets of drones, have been ramping up since about 2022.

In 2023, Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev threatened to destroy undersea cables serving the West. But Russia has rejected Western claims it sabotaged cables in the Baltics, and investigations have not been conclusive.

Hong Kong and China-registered ships also ruptured cables last year with their anchors.

Damage has been not just to internet cables, but gas and electricity feeds to millions of people.

Russia is about to relaunch a submarine damaged six years ago in a fire, which operates 10 times deeper than US subs and is widely seen as a threat to cables - either by cutting them or tapping them, like the US has done in the past closer to shore, as the Edward Snowden leaks revealed.

The US has for several years blocked or deterred Chinese contracts for cable-laying including in the South Pacific.

Washington is now bringing in tougher laws aimed at further freezing out the sole Chinese firm - HMN Technologies, an offshoot of US-blacklisted telco Huawai - which competes with just three other companies world-wide to lay cable: American firm Subcom, the Japanese NEC and the French ASN.

States can act to protect cables in their waters, but on the high seas the legal status of cables and rights and responsibility for their protection is ambiguous.

The stakes are higher still because of the data explosion from AI, and because the world's fleet of deep-sea cable repair ships is small - many of them Chinese.

Trillions down a 'garden hose'

Almost 1.5 million kilometres of subsea cable the diameter of a garden hose carries 98 percent of the world's transcontinental internet traffic and $17 trillion of financial transactions every day.

New Zealand had overlooked the scale of the risk to cables, said Massey University researchers in 2023.

"Future state or non-state sabotage, espionage, military attack or cyberattack against cable networks could potentially leave New Zealand with only an indirect submarine cable route via Sydney, either temporarily or for some duration," they wrote, urging the government to launch a security review.

The country's national security strategy and maritime security strategy says little about undersea cables, and nothing about actions to secure them.

"If the Sydney connections were also compromised, it would severely disrupt New Zealand's communications capability," said the researchers.

Defence analysts have presented the threat as two-fold: Risk of damage to cables by sabotage or accident, or of intelligence and data compromised if China gains a foothold in cable technology.

Foreign Policy magazine on Friday headlined an analysis piece: "A new era of undersea conflict is here", that called for the US to do more to protect its "soft underbelly".

Certain chokepoints exist. Greenland is one, where many cables converge off the coast, lifting its strategic importance to the Trump Administration, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Egypt is another influential chokepoint.

New Zealand has a particular vulnerability given the amount of public data the government sends to Australian cloud servers under a 'cloud-first' policy for more than a decade.

New Zealand appears to be moving slowly, and Luxon did not respond to RNZ's written questions about what he plans to do about the issue.

The government has said it would look at building the country's first satellite. Satellites provide a backup to subsea cables, although they can handle much less data.

Taiwan wants to launch 700 satellites, after experiencing more than two dozen instances of subsea cable damage at the Matsu Islands since 2018. It has stopped short of blaming China.

In September, New Zealand signed the US-led 'New York Joint Statement on the Security and Resilience of Undersea Cables in a Globally Digitalized World' that commits countries to resist "undue influence by a third country on suppliers and service providers" and to following "best practices for permitting and regulation". As with rules around satellites and space, the US takes the lead by default.

Australia, Canada, the UK and 11 other countries, plus the European Union, endorsed it. India did not and China condemned it.

New Zealand remains outside of the 'Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience' that joins Australia, the US, Japan and India, although Luxon signed a defence cooperation deal with India last week with a major maritime emphasis.

Australia has set up the Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre under the Quad, and it and the US are putting at least $70m into getting more cables built to Pacific islands. New Zealand has joined Australian in previous funding of Pacific cables.

Big trans-Pacific cables are planned by Google, called Honomoana and Tabua. US defence media reported this "strips China of a chance to make major strategic inroads by tying the region to Huawei cables".

Under the Quad partnership, Australia is also pushing to develop undersea drones, such as the Speartooth, tested at an 'Autonomous Warrior' exercise with the US last year.

Meanwhile, the UK has just launched its first ship full of drones to patrol the seabed - the RFA Porteus.

The Institute for Security and Development Policy said in January: "The deployment of naval assets and the Quad's submarine cable partnership highlights the growing securitisation of submarine cables."

The Massey University researchers said New Zealand national security discussions often overlooked how vital the cables were.

"It would be timely for the New Zealand government and private sector entities to publicly assess the threats to submarine cable networks, ahead of investing in back-up systems and developing protocols" for a fast response in case of damage, they said in 2023.

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