Reuters reported that two U.S. lawmakers recently sent a letter to Pacific ally the Federated States of Micronesia warning them that if a Chinese company wins a government-backed bid, it could compromise the security of a sensitive submarine cable project.
The letter, written by Republican U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio on Sept. 18, said China could use the project for “espionage operations and geopolitical coercion,” according to the report.
Reuters reported last week that huawei Ocean Networks submitted a bid for a $72.6 million project backed by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank at a price more than two percent lower than that of its two competitors. The Chinese company, which was only recently spun off from Huawei, is now majority owned by another Chinese company. China’s Foreign Ministry previously said the U.S. was completely smearing Chinese companies.
The submarine cable project is intended to improve the quality of communications in Nauru, the Federated States of Micronesia and the island nation of Kiribati, but Reuters quoted two unnamed sources familiar with the matter as saying that the project has now stalled in the bid evaluation phase.
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