COMMENT
This concern about Chinese SOSUS has become more widespread.
On the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI’s) The Strategist website Eli Huang from Taiwan has written a most interesting article which describes mainland China’s campaign to string SOSUS capable high speed undersea fibre optic cables between its recently militarised islands in the South China Sea.
The article “China’s cable strategy: exploring global undersea dominance” is dated
December 4, 2017. The following is just a small part of Ms Huang's article:
![]()
Since February 18, 2016“Submarine Implications of Woody andthe 3 Reef bases” Submarine Matters has been concerned about China laying Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) arrays on the seafloor: At that time I wrote:
“- For ASW and anti-shipping China can also string its undersea SeaWeb (SOSUS just part of it)
networks between the island/reefs and the Chinese mainland.”
networks between the island/reefs and the Chinese mainland.”
ARTICLE
This concern about Chinese SOSUS has become more widespread.
On the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI’s) The Strategist website Eli Huang from Taiwan has written a most interesting article which describes mainland China’s campaign to string SOSUS capable high speed undersea fibre optic cables between its recently militarised islands in the South China Sea.
The article “China’s cable strategy: exploring global undersea dominance” is dated
December 4, 2017. The following is just a small part of Ms Huang's article:
“...China sees cable networks as an essential element of its One Belt, One Road initiative. Undersea cables will ensure that Beijing is well placed to influence media and psychological operations as part of its ‘three warfares’ strategy. In the military arena, such a cable network creates a strategic advantage in anti-submarine warfare for the Chinese navy. It will form an irreplaceable part of China’s underwater observation system in the South China Sea. This ‘underwater great wall’ includes a number of subsurface sensors connected through optical cables to a central processing and monitoring facility in Shanghai. The system will function much like America’s SOSUS network, which employs fixed sensor arrays to detect Soviet submarines. A Chinese system could erode American undersea warfare advantages in the South China Sea.
Undersea cables have been described as Taiwan’s Achilles’ heel. In the event of a conflict across the Taiwan Strait, the cables will be prime Chinese targets: cutting them will cripple Taiwan’s international communications. And the damage wouldn’t be confined to Taiwan. There are at least 10 international submarine cables between Taiwan and Asia–Pacific countries. Damaging Taiwan’s cables would disrupt international business and financial markets, leading to severe economic effects on regional countries, including Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia...”
Eli Huang is an assistant research fellow of the Prospect Foundation in Taiwan. She is also special assistant to Dr Chong-Pin Lin, former deputy minister of national defense in Taiwan. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Prospect Foundation.SEE THE WHOLE THE STRATEGIST ARTICLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Separately from the Article. China's claimed islands are in red above, most are being miltarised with 100,000s tons of sand and concrete for sea ports and airports on which weapons are placed. Dual civilian-military use undersea cables can carry SOSUS arrays, For example, from Mischief Reef-Woody Island-Hainan Island-mainland China. (Map courtesy amti.csis, janes and lawfareblog).
---
Scroll across to the South China Sea on this TeleGeography-Huawei Marine Networks interactive submarine cable map to see how intense cable laying across the South China Sea is becoming.
Pete