“THE SEABED is a battlefield,” Australia’s defence minister told a room full of admirals(海军上将) and generals in Singapore at the end of May. Richard Marles, citing several subsea cables that have been cut in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan in recent years, joined 16 of his counterparts(同行，对应的人) in announcing plans to protect the submarine tendrils(水下触手) of the digital world: the nearly 700 communications cables which mostly lie exposed(暴露着) on the floor of the world’s oceans.
“海底是一个战场”，澳大利亚国防部长5月底在新加坡对满屋子的海军上将和将军们说。理查德·马尔斯援引近年来在波罗的海和台湾周边被切断的几根海底电缆，与16位同行一起宣布了保护数字世界水下触手的计划：这些触手就是近700根通信电缆，它们大多暴露在世界海洋底部。
Governments and armed forces in Asia have only recently awoken to(意识到) the importance of subsea cables. Some of their fears of subterfuge(诡计，欺骗) may be overblown(夸大的); to date, no conclusive evidence(确凿证据) has been shared to suggest that the cuts highlighted by Mr Marles are sabotage(蓄意破坏). But they are right about the vulnerability of these arteries of commerce(商业命脉). And the private firms which build and operate almost all of the world’s subsea cables are not waiting for governments to better secure them. They are increasingly taking steps(采取措施) on their own to avoid Asia’s most contested waters.
亚洲政府和武装部队直到最近才意识到海底电缆的重要性。他们对于阴谋的担忧可能有些夸大；迄今为止，没有确凿证据表明马尔斯先生强调的那些断裂是蓄意破坏。但他们对这些商业命脉的脆弱性的判断是正确的。而建造和运营全球几乎所有海底电缆的私营公司并没有等待政府来更好地保护它们。它们正越来越多地自行采取措施，避开亚洲最具争议的水域。
Asia and Australia are now connected to Europe by fibre-optic cables(光纤电缆) which tend to hug the coastlines(紧贴海岸线) of the Asian continent before heading up the Red Sea. But a combination of the AI boom and geopolitics is rerouting(重新规划路线) cable traffic across the Indian and Pacific oceans. This new geography avoids chokepoints(咽喉要道) like the Strait of Malacca and contested waters(有争议的水域) like the South China Sea. Much of it avoids South-East Asia entirely, running from the Middle East and India to Australia and then onward through the Pacific Islands to America.
亚洲和澳大利亚目前通过光纤电缆与欧洲相连，这些电缆往往紧贴亚洲大陆的海岸线，然后上行至红海。但AI热潮和地缘政治的结合正在重新规划穿越印度洋和太平洋的电缆流量。这种新格局避开了马六甲海峡等咽喉要道和南海等争议水域。其中很大一部分完全绕开了东南亚，从中东和印度直达澳大利亚，再经太平洋岛屿通往美国。