Another Tool In Your Network Belt: SEA-H2X
I don't see any compelling reason for totally excluding Chinese Layer 1 capacity from your network. Data should be Layer 3 encrypted in any case and most DWDM box manufacturers such as Ciena offer Layer 1 encryption. The SEA-H2X fibre optic subsea cable went live in May. It offers 200 Tbps throughput on several key routes such as Thailand/Singapore, HK/Singapore, and Malaysia/Singapore. Moreover, it is an open cable system. This means each fibre pair owner selects their submarine line termination equipment. So you might even find a non-Chinese carrier on the system who purchased spectrum or fibre pairs. SEA-H2X is a 8 fibre pair cable whose main trunk connects Singapore to two Chinese landings. Hauwei was the system integrator with China Mobile, China Unicom, and Converge as consortium members. Converge is a large Philippine fibre-to-the-home provider with 2 million subscribers.