Alexandra Heal
How the US is pushing China out of the internet’s plumbing
Nearly 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles) of metal-encased fiber crisscrosses the world’s oceans, speeding internet traffic seamlessly around the globe. The supply and installation of these cables have been dominated by companies from France, the US and Japan. The Chinese government started successfully penetrating the global market, but consecutive US administrations have since managed to freeze China out of large swathes of it.