Presentation Schedule
Competing for Control: US and China’s Infrastructural Power in Southeast Asia’s Undersea Cable Infrastructure (105030)
Session Chair: Mae Chow
This presentation will be live-streamed via Zoom (Online Access)
Monday, 20 April 2026 21:30
Session: Session 2
Room: Live-Stream Room 1
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
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Southeast Asia’s undersea cable networks have become critical arenas of US–China geopolitical competition. Carrying over 95% of global internet traffic, submarine cables underpin regional connectivity while exposing strategic vulnerabilities. China’s Digital Silk Road expands influence through state-backed cable firms and financing, whereas the United States employs regulatory measures, such as the Clean Network initiative, to limit Chinese participation. These rival strategies risk fragmenting the internet along geopolitical lines. This paper asks: How, and to what extent, do the United States and China exercise power over undersea cable infrastructure in Southeast Asia? Drawing on Susan Strange’s (2008) concept of structural power and Christian Bueger et al.’s infrastructure theory (2023), the study conceptualizes cables as both material systems and political instruments—built, governed, and contested as sites of power. Through conducting interviews and analyzing qualitative case studies of key cable projects and their governance frameworks, this paper shows how the United States and China actively wield infrastructural power over Southeast Asia by shaping the terms on which regional states access, build, and secure their undersea cable systems. While the United States has relied on strategies of exclusion, securitization and rulemaking, Beijing has sought to embed its presence through emphasizing inclusion and cultivating structural and financial dependencies. In turn, Southeast Asian states must navigate these pressures through hedging and diversifying partnerships to preserve autonomy over their digital infrastructure. The analysis highlights undersea cables as connectors of global digital governance, but as instruments through which great powers seek to structure the regional digital order.
Authors:
Mae Chow, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore
About the Presenter(s)
Mae is a Researcher at the Centre on Asia and Globalization (CAG) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule
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