[tommiegannert]

It could also be a distraction from them cutting and inserting their equipment somewhere else along the line. Dunno how detailed the monitoring is of these cables, but visibly cutting it one place would apparently give them two weeks to play around along that cable.

Or they're just being bullies, or testing willingness to defend. At this point, I'd assume it's some type of aggression, at least. Unless cables have been cut all the time, but now suddenly it's becoming headlines for political reasons...

[belter]

The data will be encrypted no?

[tommiegannert]

Hopefully.

If we're talking about the Chinese state, I'd say it's viable. Perhaps not breaking AES 256 outright, but screwed up implementations of cryptography. And perhaps even backdoors.