API Geoeconomic Briefing is a series provided by the Asia Pacific Initiative, an independent think tank based in Tokyo. The series will look into geopolitical and economic trends in the post-COVID-19 world, with a particular focus on technology and innovation, global supply chains, international rule-making and climate change.
From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, laying undersea cables to establish a telegraph communication network for the British Empire was a major geopolitical policy.
Vast submarine telegraph cables were put in place, including one running westward from the U.K. under the Atlantic Ocean, one between the U.K. and France, and one stretching southward around Africa and eventually reaching Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.