Beijing has developed a device capable of “severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication lines,” according to The South China Morning Post.
The invention is meant for “seabed mining,” but could be used to sabotage the crucial undersea cables carpeting the ocean floor. Those cables carry 97 per cent of intercontinental communications and data transfers and support an estimated US$10 trillion worth of financial transactions every day. Governments also rely on these cables to send classified information. A vast crochet of cables criss-crosses the seas around China, including some connecting to the U.S. and Canada.
Just a week before the technology was unveiled, G7 foreign ministers in Charlevoix, Que., noted their “growing concern that undersea communications cables... have been subject to critical damage through sabotage.” G7 ministers also pledged to strengthen their capacities to repair undersea infrastructure.
