SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook has decided to halt its efforts to build a trans-Pacific undersea cable connecting California and Hong Kong, due to tensions between the United States and China.
“Due to ongoing concerns from the US government about direct communication links between the US and Hong Kong, we have decided to withdraw our FCC application,” a company spokesman told AFP yesterday, referring to the Federal Communications Commission.
“We look forward to working with all parties to reconfigure the system to meet the concerns of the US government.”
The social networking giant and several telecoms companies filed their first construction permit in 2018, to connect two sites in California to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The project was supposed to facilitate communications through fibre optics capable of carrying large volumes of data with very low waiting times.
However, Washington resisted because of perceived potential national security risks regarding China, which has tightened its control over Hong Kong.
Last June, the US Justice Department (DoJ) recommended that a trans-Pacific undersea cable proposed by Google and Facebook bypass Hong Kong.
The Pacific Light Cable Network was originally intended to link the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
The Hong Kong landing station “would expose US communications traffic to collection” by Beijing, said DoJ.
FCC gave Google permission last April to operate the link between North America and Taiwan. – AFP, March 11, 2021
