A mechanic and an electrician maintaining an undersea cable off the coast of Hawaii in 2016. Credit: U.S. Navy, Creative Commons
Ninety-nine percent of international internet communications travel through undersea cables no thicker than a coffee cup before reaching their final destination. While private companies mostly own these fiber optic wires in the United States, whatever country they land in could, theoretically, have the opportunity to access their data.
And that’s what worries Team Telecom, a newly formalized interagency national security committee led by the Department of Justice that, in recent months, has focused its attention on America’s internet connections to China. At such a critical moment in U.S.-China relations, observers say the committee’s actions have to walk a fine line between safeguarding American data and national security and taking a potentially isolationist approach that cedes control over the world’s digital infrastructure.
When American telecom and internet companies want to lay new cables, they file their plans with the Federal Communications Commission. In th
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Did Eric Dai expose a Chinese scheme to steal critical military technology? Or did he steal millions of dollars from a Chinese company by exploiting geopolitical tensions? It's not entirely clear, but Dai's saga hits all the high notes of current U.S.-China tensions, including convoluted plots to illicitly acquire U.S. semiconductor technology and extraterritorial schemes to harass, intimidate and coerce the Chinese diaspora. What is clear is that, for Dai, who founded a successful Chinese investment firm but is now seeking asylum in the U.S., it feels like World War III.
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