Jakarta. Communications Minister Meutya Hafid has warned Singapore against cutting the undersea internet cable, citing the city-state’s severely high dependence and potential investment losses from the connectivity disruptions.

Tensions between the two neighbors — which sprouted from a haze crisis — have now moved to the digital sphere.

Singapore’s ex-appointed parliamentarian Calvin Cheng recently floated the idea of cutting the submarine fiber-optic cables. In an X (formerly Twitter) post, Cheng even attached an infographic that shows how 90% of Indonesia’s international internet traffic flows through Singapore. 

While Cheng quickly clarified that Singapore will “obviously” not pursue the plan, Meutya fired back at the threat in a separate Instagram post.

Aside from telling people to stay calm, Meutya wrote that most of the submarine cable lines that land in Singapore cross Indonesian waters.

“If [the cables] are cut off, be it unintentionally or intentionally, 80% of Singapore’s connectivity is also at risk of being paralyzed,” Meutya said on Tuesday evening. 

She pointed to Indonesia’s population size, which is 47-fold greater than that of Singapore. As many as 267 million people are connected to the internet, according to Meutya, alluding to how the figures make the country an attractive digital market.

“Without this figure, investors from global tech firms can potentially leave Singapore.”

The minister went on to say that digital infrastructure is something “that needs to be maintained together, not only for the interests of both countries but also for global connectivity”.

Meutya even uploaded a picture of the Indonesian flag in what appeared to be an attempt to reinforce nationalism.

Earlier that day, Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan came to Jakarta to iron out the long list of differences. To the press, his Indonesian counterpart Arrmanatha Nasir said that they were able to speak “candidly” after spending nearly two hours having their closed-door talks. Neither diplomat mentioned Indonesia’s natural gas export cut — another hurdle — during the press conference, although they did put emphasis on addressing the bad transboundary haze.

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