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But this is cable, not windows.

So H2 is going to be around 12-15Tbps per pair, with the original/initial plan to go Sydney - Hong Kong, with branches off to other Pacific nations like Guam. Then an option to run Sydney - San Franciso via/branching to the Solomons & Hawaii.

So a good chunk of it is due to land in China anyway, where it could be intercepted. Doing anything to say, Guam - San Francisco would involve doing nefarious things at the optical level to eavesdrop on wavelengths provisioned say, China - Sydney, or Guam - San Francisco.. Which is obviously a sensitive topic given Guam is basically a large US military base. But somehow, you'd need to extend from the optical control plane into the data layer to sniff traffic, and hope nobody notices. Requests to provision say, Nx500Gbps capacity Guam - HK may raise eyebrows amongst the system's operators.

Again the risk is mainly operational, as in potential denial of service. So given Guam's a major Pacific operations base, cutting services.. Which would be immediately obvious, and generally an indication that all its not well with US - China diplomatic relations, and the situation's about to get worse.