The spatial selection of China's overseas strategic pivots based on the international digital infrastructure: A perspective of submarine cable

International digital infrastructure represented by submarine cables has important strategic value in information transmission, economic and trade stability, and military security, and can provide solid support for the spatial selection of China's overseas strategic pivots (COSPs). Based on the theoretical framework of spatial selection of COSPs and the distribution pattern of global submarine cable network, we identified global Internet gateways and then screened COSPs at the regional, national and teleport scales. The results show that: (1) Overseas strategic pivot is further extension of Internet gateway, which endows the latter with a pivot attribute and strategic meaning on the basis of its connotation. The identification logic of COSPs based on submarine cable network follows the three-level spatial scale of ''region-country-teleport'', and geopolitical theory, new state space theory and location theory respectively dominate the spatial selection of COSPs at higher scale, mesoscale and lower scale. They each have their own focus and are nested with each other, forming a logical framework of the spatial selection of COSPs based on submarine cable network. (2) The global submarine cable network exhibits a distinct spatial imbalance, a pattern further diversified by the cumulative effects of scale on node distribution. However, regardless of the scale, the global submarine cable network has formed a ''one heart, three poles, three corridors'' pattern with the rimland of the Eurasian continent as the heart, the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore as the three poles, and the three main corridors spanning the North Atlantic, the southeastern and the southwestern sea area of the Eurasian continent. (3) The spatial selection results of COSPs have geographical proximity and similarity, mainly distributed in six strategic zones, namely East Asia-Southeast Asia strategic zone, Persian Gulf-Red Sea strategic zone, Mediterranean-Europe West Coast strategic zone, Africa West Coast strategic zone, Caribbean strategic zone, and Eastern North Pacific strategic zone, presenting a ''core-expansion-periphery'' distribution pattern. The results can enrich the research framework of submarine cable and strategic pivot, providing theoretical reference and policy inspiration for expanding China's overseas interests.