The Government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, like ones before him, have emphasised the need to improve Sri Lanka’s digitalisation.  Many experts have opined that digitalisation will greatly benefit Sri Lanka. Already, multiple public services and State institutions are being modernised with digitalisation or are in different stages of the process that commenced under previous governments.  Sri Lanka also has designs to roll out more modern telecommunication and digital infrastructure, with 5G and 6G technology being considered and plans afoot to expand Sri Lanka’s digital services and ICT industries to boost exports.

However, Sri Lanka’s critical digital infrastructure – undersea cables, which connect the island nation to the internet and the rest of the globe, remains vulnerable, with multiple governments dragging their feet on addressing the matter effectively.  Sri Lanka’s long-stalled legislative protection for critical connectivity infrastructure, the National Submarine Cables Protection and Resilience Framework (NSCPRF), may once again be revisited, with the current Government taking steps to study the topic, it is learnt. This, amid growing international concern regarding acts of sabotage and a return of ‘Cold War era’ seabed warfare tactics in conflict hotspots, with multiple undersea cables and pipelines damaged and severed due to ‘accidents’ or sabotage in the Nordic Sea, the Baltic Sea, and most recently, in the Gulf of Aden and the Taiwan Strait. Earlier this year, the Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne confirmed to The Sunday Morning that there had been an initial discussion about undersea cable protection. He declined to elaborate on whether the new initiative would see a continuation of the NSCPRF, but added that with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) under the ministry’s purview, it would be part of the discussion. TRCSL Director General Air Vice Marshal (Retd.) Bandula Herath stated that a committee appointed by the Government had held a meeting last week to discuss the topic. It would be prudent for the Government to act quickly on this matter as the emerging trends regarding such critical digital infrastructure have now reached an alarming situation.  

As geopolitical tensions escalate, the need to safeguard these assets is increasingly urgent. And domestic, regional and international safeguards are needed. There are international laws such as the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982). Domestic laws and civil liability standards in most countries provide another level of deterrence. But malign actors are willing to ignore or violate these laws if it suits their interests. The crucial undersea data cable networks are also vulnerable to non-State actors such as terrorists and vandals, as well as to accidental damage. Undersea cables, which carry about 99% of international data traffic, are a prime example of how the global commons are crucial to transnational business and communications. Attacks on undersea cables in 2024 in the Baltic sea with the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and, more recently, in the Taiwan straits and Gulf of Aden need to be taken seriously. In February 2025, a Chinese-crewed vessel registered in Togo was suspected of severing a subsurface fiber-optic cable connecting Taiwan to the Penghu Islands, a strategic territory in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan labeled the incident as potential gray-zone harassment after detaining eight crew members. Such attacks on critical infrastructure can have major economic and security ramifications. In February, China revealed for the first time that it has developed a compact deep-sea cable cutting device that is powerful enough to severe communication lines, the South China Morning Post reported. The tool is reportedly able to operate at a depth of up to 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) and has been designed for use with the country’s advanced manned or unmanned submersible vehicles. It is likely that the blatant public unveiling of such a capability is part of China’s strategic communication, and is designed to create unease and panic among target nations. Irrespective of its intentions, China’s announcement must be taken in the context of its history with compliance with international law and norms, particularly in the maritime sphere, where China has eroded its own credibility by going against the international law and painting itself as an unreliable actor.

As such, it is prudent for the Government and in the Indian Ocean region to expedite efforts to create legal and law enforcement and operational safeguards to protect our critical digital infrastructure at sea.