By Mahendra Ved
New Delhi. As the world witnesses “dramatic politics” taking place in the United States under the second Trump administration, an American academic hopes that it will remain “an aberration” that America’s allies will understand. She cautions that they should not lose sight of the “risks, opaque and direct,” from China’s Digital Silk Road.
Dr April A. Herlevi of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), addressed many institutions during her India visit to create greater awareness on the “security of subsea level”. She foresees sweeping changes to US national security and foreign and domestic policy to tackle the increasing likelihood that seabed resource extraction is prompting serious commercial interest.
In an interaction with India Strategic, she pointed out that “several of the intersecting policies mean the ocean floor has the potential to become more congested, testing international law and efforts to manage the seabed for the ‘benefit of mankind”.
She stresses how this is reshaping global digital infrastructure, ranging from undersea cables and data networks to AI, cloud, and telecom systems. The new US policies have emerged to compete with China’s aspirations in the maritime, digital, and undersea domains. President Donald Trump’s 9 April executive order, titled “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” states that “it is the policy of the United States to revitalise and rebuild domestic maritime industries”. Maritime reindustrialisation has bipartisan support in the United States, as does shipbuilding.
Dr. Herlevi is a leading expert on the political economy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), its economic statecraft and the global role of the PRC’s economic and military actors.
She emphasises how this is reshaping global digital infrastructure, ranging from undersea cables and data networks to AI, cloud, and telecom systems.
She said the push to begin deep-sea mining may frustrate US allies who have called for a “precautionary pause” or moratorium. She urged that in the long run, they will understand and appreciate the long-term objective.
Dr Herlevi stressed the need for a rigorous, independent analysis of the Geopolitical and Geoeconomic dimensions of China’s technology acquisition strategy, outlining the legal, policy, and institutional tools leveraged to enhance innovation capacity.
She underscored the urgent need for robust technology protection frameworks and the importance of collective international engagement to address these emerging challenges in an increasingly contested maritime and technological landscape.
Herlevi’s work focuses on critical topics such as China’s Maritime Silk Road and Digital Silk Road initiatives, PRC perspectives on Oceania and the Pacific Islands, U.S. strategies for engagement in Micronesia and Melanesia, and technology competition between the United States and China.
A central theme was the urgent need for robust technology protection frameworks and the importance of collective international engagement to address these emerging challenges in an increasingly contested maritime and technological landscape.
