Dr. Do Than Hai, Deputy Director-General of the East Sea Institute at Vietnam's Diplomatic Academy speaking at the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) 2025 in New Delhi
October 30, 2025
By Aritra Banerjee
Southeast Asia’s vital submarine-cable network is under rising pressure, and India may need to step into a linchpin role for regional connectivity and resilience, said a Vietnamese expert at the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) 2025.
At a session titled “Co-operative Regional Capability Enhancement for the Protection of Critical Underwater Infrastructure in and off Vietnam,” Dr Do Than Hai, Deputy Director-General of the East Sea Institute at Vietnam’s Diplomatic Academy, warned that Vietnam’s underwater fibre-optic and energy-infrastructure backbone is increasingly vulnerable. He noted that Vietnam currently depends on undersea fibre-optic routes such as AAG, APG/IA, AAE-1, SMW-3 and ADC, which together carry roughly 95 percent of its external data traffic. At the same time, Vietnam plans to deploy ten new cable routes by 2030 to expand capacity and resilience.
He raised alarm bells over recent performance: “Since late 2022, all five cables had troubles — a loss of 75 percent capacity.” In June 2024, three of the five were down simultaneously; historically, the annual incident rate runs around fifteen, with average restoration times well over 40 days. Dr Do flagged multiple risk layers: anchoring and accidental ship-drag damage in heavily trafficked waters (80,000–90,000 vessels traverse the region annually), destructive fishing activities (including trawling and explosives), natural hazards (fault-lines in the Pacific Ring of Fire), and geopolitical friction with fragmented jurisdictions and delayed repairs. On the global side, only about 60 dedicated cable-repair ships operate, contributing to Southeast Asia’s lengthy “40-plus-day” average for restoration versus North America’s roughly 15 days.
Against this backdrop, Dr Do — who previously served as Vietnam’s Deputy Chief of Mission to India — called for enhanced regional infrastructure cooperation in which India plays a key role. He listed India’s “expected contributions” as regional monitoring, route diversification and infrastructure resilience, capacity-building, and formation of a Quad-ASEAN partnership. Given its strategic location between Europe and Asia, India is well positioned to provide maritime domain awareness and help ASEAN countries bolster infrastructure resilience.
What are the Implications for India?
For India, the stakes are significant. If positioned as a regional connector between ASEAN and global data-centre hubs, it can sharpen its footprint in the Indo-Pacific while contributing to regional digital resilience.
Beyond economics, the underwater backbone is pivotal for sovereignty, security and strategic vision. Dr Do emphasised that: “The underwater internet lifeline is not just economic — it is national security and vision.”
However, the task is not trivial. The region lacks a comprehensive regional plan, suffers limited surveillance and domain awareness, has fragmented responsibilities, weak communications, and remains reactive rather than proactive.
As Vietnam pushes ahead with its ambition of ten new submarine-cable routes by 2030, the entry of India as a partner in planning, training, monitoring and redundancy offers a tangible avenue for broader collaboration. With the region’s underwater internet lifelines increasingly entangled in geopolitical, environmental and technical risk, Vietnam’s call for India to embrace a strategic connector role signals the evolving nature of digital infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific.
Aritra Banerjee
Aritra Banerjee is a Contributing Editor, South Asia at Eurasia Review with a focus on Defence, Strategic Affairs, and Indo-Pacific geopolitics. He is also the co-author of The Indian Navy @75: Reminiscing the Voyage. Having spent his formative years in the United States before returning to India, he brings a global perspective combined with on-the-ground insight to his reporting. He holds a Master's in International Relations, Security & Strategy from O.P. Jindal Global University, a Bachelor's in Mass Media from the University of Mumbai, and Professional Education in Strategic Communications from King's College London (King's Institute for Applied Security Studies)
No comments:
Post a Comment