> "But the U.S. government, concerned about the potential for Chinese spying on these sensitive communications cables, ran a successful campaign to flip the contract to SubCom through incentives and pressure on consortium members."
The U.S. government is equally concerned about losing the ability to spy on cables itself, although the above statement is not false either. Both parties want to collect, filter and mine all the traffic on the global Internet trunks, that's obvious enough. There's always the submarine spy option I suppose:
> "(2014, pdf) In 2005 it was reported that the submarine USS Jimmy Carter was being used to transport technicians to the bottom of the ocean to tapfiber-‐optic cables. This would indicate that the NSA continued the practice of mid-ocean cable taps until at least as recently as nine years ago..."
That's a risky operation, however, compared to:
> "...the easiest and most reliable way is to have the consent of the transit company and split the wires. Given the apparent relationship the NSA has with telecommunications companies and its history of tapping AT&T’s cables, it seems likely that it has gained companies’ consent and access to landing stations or otherwise to install splitters."
https://surveille.eui.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/04...