Cable War—What Beijing and Iran Are Really Preparing

Beijing just confirmed a breakthrough. A system capable of cutting deep sea undersea cables. Almost immediately, Iran signaled that the cables in the Strait of Hormuz could be at risk. If that line is crossed, the shock won't stay regional. It could ripple through global energy and financial systems. And Taiwan? It's already on that list. Welcome back to Final War with Catherine Hu. I'm back too. The situation in the Strait of Hormuz is shifting fast. But behind the scenes, Beijing's alignment with Iran hasn't changed. Even though it has never been openly acknowledged. Even after a vessel departing from Zhuhai's Gaolan Port was intercepted by the U.S. military. As divisions between moderates and hardliners in Iran continue to push the situation in unpredictable directions, Beijing is, in many ways, facing a similar internal dynamic. Today, let's take a closer look. What exactly are Beijing and Iran preparing this time? On April 15, 2026, a report from the Beijing-controlled South China Morning Post revealed something significant. China has successfully tested a deep-sea electrohydraulic actuator. A system capable of cutting undersea cables at depths of up to 3,500 meters. The device was deployed from a research vessel just last weekend. According to official statements, the test was a success. More importantly, authorities said the gap between development and real-world application has now been closed. A signal that this capability may already be ready for deployment. The report also referenced a prior document describing how this technology had been framed as a tool for cutting undersea cables and operating deep-sea grapples. On paper, it isn't purely destructive. It has clear civilian applications, especially in the maintenance and construction of subsea oil and gas infrastructure. But in the current global context, and at this particular moment, its potential use in military scenarios and other high-impact applications is hard to ignore. In fact, this wasn't a new signal. It was already visible a year ago. In the headline of a South China Morning Post report published on March 22, 2025. The core message of that report was direct. China had revealed a powerful deep-sea cable cutting capability. One capable of targeting undersea cables that carry up to 95% of the world's internet traffic. For the first time, it confirmed the development of a compact yet highly capable device designed to sever critical communication lines. And the implication was clear. This is not just a technical breakthrough. It has the potential to shift the global balance of power. Just one day earlier, on April 14, 2026, Xinhua News Agency, the party's official voice, cited a report from China's Ministry of Natural Resources. Confirming that on April 11, the research vessel Ocean Geology 2 had completed its first deep-sea mission of the year. And within that mission was a critical detail. The use of a deep-sea electrohydraulic actuator to cut cables at depths of up to 3,500 meters in extreme deep-sea conditions. What does this deep-sea cable-cutting capability actually mean in strategic terms? First, it directly affects the US military's positioning across the Indo-Pacific. Guam, one of the central pillars of that strategy, and a key node in the second island chain, has long been structured around one objective. To contain the Chinese Communist Party. And it's not just a military base. More than 12 fiber-optic cables run through Guam, supporting both major private sector networks, including companies like Google and critical US military systems. The South China Morning Post went even further. It warned that if Beijing were to deploy this capability near key strategic hubs, it could, in the middle of a geopolitical crisis, push global communications toward paralysis. But what's even more striking is what happened next. Almost immediately, this capability began to emerge as a core pressure tool in Iran's confrontation with the United States. On April 22, Tasnim News Agency, the official voice of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published a report highlighting how vulnerable undersea data cables in the Strait of Hormuz could be, whether through accidental incidents or deliberate actions. This pattern is not theoretical. We've already seen it play out. In the Red Sea, the Houthis followed the same sequence. First the threats, then attacks on ships, and then the targeting of undersea cables. How much impact could Iran's threat actually have? The Strait of Hormuz is not just the world's most critical energy choke point. It is also a central artery for global data. Key undersea cables running through or near the Strait connect the entire Gulf region, while also linking major systems between Europe, India, and Asia. At its narrowest point, the Strait is just 33 km wide, yet beneath it run at least 5 to 6 core trunk cables. These cables are laid in relatively shallow waters, some only tens of meters deep, carrying roughly 17% to 25% of global internet traffic, and up to 80% of cross-regional data between Asia and Europe. It's not an overstatement to say that the Hormuz-Red Sea corridor has become a central digital artery linking Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. What runs through this corridor is not just infrastructure. It is the point where the oil economy and the digital economy converge. And that overlap turns Hormuz into a dual strategic choke point. Cut off oil, and you disrupt global energy. Cut the cables, and you strike directly at global information flows, and the systems that depend on them. If these cables were cut, the impact would be immediate and severe. Across the Gulf, countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar could lose between 70% and 90% of their network connectivity. The shock would extend well beyond the Middle East. India, Pakistan, and parts of East Africa would all be heavily affected. India, in particular, depends on these routes for roughly 30% to 40% of its westbound internet traffic. In practical terms, traffic across these regions could drop by 30% to 60%, with network speeds slowing dramatically. The most immediate consequence would be a breakdown in the speed that global financial markets depend on. Transaction latency could jump from milliseconds to seconds, or even minutes. High-frequency trading systems could stall entirely, while cross-border payments and settlements face severe disruption. The potential losses are staggering, ranging from billions to hundreds of billions of dollars per day. And that's only the immediate shock. The longer-term problem is recovery. In a conflict environment, where the strait could be mined and shipping routes restricted, restoring damaged cables would not be quick. Once cut, repairs could take months, or even longer. We've already seen how slow this process can be. After the Red Sea cable damage in 2024, restoration took 5 to 6 months. Estimates suggest that if the cables in the Strait of Hormuz were cut, repairs could take 3 to 6 months, with total losses potentially reaching 3 to 5 trillion dollars. What this points to is a broader strategy. Iran's hardline faction appears to be operating on a clear sequence, using military provocation to trigger escalation, then expanding attacks targeting both the Gulf's oil infrastructure and undersea cables. The objective is not just regional impact, but systemic shock, amplifying pressure across global energy and financial systems. And through that pressure, to push the United States toward a choice, withdraw, or accept a deal shaped on terms more favorable to the hardliners. Where does this capability actually come from? Based on what we've just laid out, the answer is already clear. What Beijing has developed is no longer contained. It has already extended into Iran's operational space. And for Taiwan, given its proximity to mainland China, the same threat is not distant. It is immediate. In March 2026, Jason Hsu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former member of Taiwan's legislative UN, raised a critical point during a U.S. congressional hearing before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He pointed directly to the role undersea cables would play in any potential regional conflict. Hsu made the scale of the risk clear. Undersea cables carry between 97% and 99% of the world's intercontinental data traffic. Citing Chinese military documents, he pointed to a clear operational sequence. In the event of a Taiwan Strait conflict, cable infrastructure would likely be targeted before any direct military move on Taiwan. And the threshold is lower than many assume. The Chinese navy would not need to cut every cable. By precisely cutting just three key clusters near the Bashi Channel, Taiwan's bandwidth could, in theory, be reduced by as much as 99%. What follows is not just disruption, but isolation. This form of digital blockade would break down military command and control systems, paralyze financial markets, trigger public panic, and severely disrupt communication between Taiwan and the outside world. At this point, an obvious question comes up. Could systems like Starlink replace undersea cables? But according to Hsu, the answer is far from simple. Low Earth orbit satellite networks like SpaceX's Starlink have proven useful in the war in Ukraine. But in Taiwan, the constraints are far more significant. First, availability is a huge problem. Starlink is basically not available in Taiwan right now. Taiwanese law requires foreign telecom companies to form a joint venture with a local partner who holds the majority stake, and those talks fell through. On top of that, Elon Musk has massive business interests in China with Tesla, and he has publicly said that Chinese officials told him not to deploy Starlink in Taiwan. Second, it's easy to jam. Even if Starlink were available, Chinese researchers say it's technically possible to jam the signal across Taiwan, but it would take more than 900 synchronized airborne platforms working together. These are mainly jammer drones flying in a coordinated swarm, like a giant electronic warfare blanket in the sky. Third, the bandwidth is nowhere near enough. Low Earth orbit satellites like Starlink simply can't match the huge capacity of undersea cables. Taiwan's cables carry over 100 terabits per second. Starlink can only provide a tiny fraction of that, so it can help a little in an emergency, but it can't replace the cables at all. To understand why this matters, it helps to look at testimony from November 2025. At a U.S. congressional cybersecurity hearing, telegeography's chief research officer, Timothy Strong, laid out the numbers clearly. Undersea cables carry more than 99% of all intercontinental data, and support roughly $12 trillion in financial transactions every single day. And the gap is not marginal. The cost per unit of cable capacity is about 2,800 times cheaper than satellites. That tells you everything. Satellites may serve as a critical backup, but they cannot replace the scale, or the economic efficiency, of fiber-optic cables. A 2022 study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University adds another layer to this. By analyzing a large dataset drawn from publicly available Chinese sources, researchers identified roughly 294,000 points of interest across Taiwan. Locations with potential strategic value, including military facilities, economic hubs, and critical infrastructure. And the level of detail matters. Among these entries were precisely mapped locations of multiple undersea cable landing stations. The implication is hard to miss. This reflects extensive and highly granular intelligence collection on Taiwan's critical infrastructure. Data that could directly support target selection in a conflict scenario. What this ultimately points to is a broader shift. Beijing is no longer developing technology. It is building a wartime capability. When new technologies are no longer directed toward advancing human well-being, but instead toward projecting risk outward, the consequences don't stay contained. They tend to come back. For Iran. And for Beijing. 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