Last week in London, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo warned against China’s global ambitions and suggested that Margaret Thatcher would not have allowed Huawei into Britain’s 5G networks. He could also have pointed to Britain’s imperial past, which China is literally retracing today.
Even as Huawei faces resistance in western airwaves, it is racing ahead under the world’s seas. Undersea cables carry 95 per cent of all international data, and Huawei is building or improving nearly 100 of them. One flagship project is the Pakistan East Africa Cable Express, or Peace, which is slated to become the shortest route for high-speed internet traffic between Asia and Africa.
A century and a half ago, Britain was wrapping the world with telegraph cables, including one through Gwadar, the same port town in Pakistan where the Peace cable begins. Today, China operates Gwadar’s port, which is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Many expect it will become a Chinese naval facility in the coming years.