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China urged to create law to protect undersea fiber optic cables
The proposal highlights that undersea cables carry about 99.0% of intercontinental data and that physical seabed infrastructure is still largely unregulated under existing Chinese cyber and data laws.
Beijing has been urged to develop its own legal framework to help protect underwater fibre optic cables as concerns rise over possible sabotage of critical ocean infrastructure, according to a report by SCMP Economy.
The recommendation, from Shanghai Maritime University law professor Guo Ran, points to the scale and strategic importance of subsea lines, saying they carry about 99.0% of global intercontinental data, including through major chokepoints such as the Red Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Guo Ran said China should build a governance system for international subsea cable security that combines international legal legitimacy with practical defence capabilities, arguing that existing Chinese legal efforts have largely focused on digital data processing and cross border data flows rather than physical seabed infrastructure.
The report notes that in recent years China has introduced a Data Security Law and a Cybersecurity Law, but it says those frameworks have not yet provided broad coverage for protecting the physical cable infrastructure itself.