Japan to subsidize undersea cable vessels over ‘very serious’ national security concerns — will front up to half the cost for $300 million vessels bought by NEC

Japanese officials are set to offer subsidies to NEC, one of the country’s biggest tech companies, to purchase cable-laying ships capable of traversing oceans. According to the Financial Times, Tokyo is willing to cover as much as half of the acquisition cost of these vessels. With each ship estimated to cost around $300 million, Japan is seemingly ready to spend half a billion dollars or more to allow NEC to have unfettered access to its own cable-laying vessels, a matter the government now considers…