After the revision of Facebook and Google‘s submarine cable plan, Hong Kong has been excluded and only Taiwan and the Philippines are retained; the map above shows the current submarine cable map in the Pacific region. (Photo source: taken from Submarine Cable Map website)
AFP reports that a Facebook spokesperson told AFP on 10 October that the U.S. government had decided to withdraw its application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because of continuing concerns about the information security of the fiber optic cable link between the U.S. and Hong Kong.
The spokesman also added that it is now looking forward to other possible cooperation opportunities to reconfigure the system to meet the U.S. government’s considerations.
The cable, known as the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), was originally intended to connect the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines.
The report said that Facebook and several telecommunications companies first submitted an application in 2018 to build a fiber optic cable to connect from California to Hong Kong and Taiwan in Asia, a project aimed at strengthening trans-Pacific communications and thus making global Internet communications faster.
By 2020, Facebook and Google teamed up to create the “Pacific Light Cable Network” (Pacific Light Cable Network) plan changes, the part of the connection to Taiwan, in April of the same year to obtain U.S. permission, but the fiber optic connection to Hong Kong was recommended to reject, because Washington considered the plan a potential national security risk related to the Communist Party of China, as Beijing continues to strengthen its control over Hong Kong, fearing that U.S. citizens would be exposed to capital security risks.
The U.S. Department of Justice recommended in June 2020 that the trans-Pacific submarine cable proposed by Google and Facebook bypass Hong Kong. The DOJ argued that the fiber optic cable would connect Hong Kong and that Beijing would use the communication channel to collect millions of sensitive U.S. personal information. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission agreed to allow Google to use the submarine cable between North America and Taiwan, and granted Google a license in April 2020.
The interdepartmental “Telecommunications Team” led by the U.S. Department of Justice has pointed out in the past that Pacific Cable Data Communications, although registered in Hong Kong, is a subsidiary of Dr. Peng Telecom Media Group, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party‘s intelligence and security agencies, and therefore asked the FCC to (FCC) to deny the U.S. option to connect to Hong Kong.
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