With global data at risk from hybrid threats, Southeast Asia and Europe need to look past declarations to secure our shared data arteries
4-MIN READ4-MIN ListenBarbora ValockovaPublished: 12:00pm, 15 Mar 2026What does the world’s digital economy rest on? Thousands of kilometres of fibre-optic cable lying on the ocean floor and, increasingly, in the crosshairs of great-power rivalry.
The confluence of recent subsea cable disruptions, gaps in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and intensifying great-power competition has elevated this underwater infrastructure from a technical and commercial concern to a security issue – characterised as “this century’s hidden battleground”. It has also, however, generated momentum for closer Asean–EU collaboration.
Subsea fibre-optic cables carry roughly 99 per cent of intercontinental data traffic, yet this critical infrastructure is highly exposed and has faced repeated disruptions across Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
