The internet is famously a hodge-podge of government, private-sector and hybrid assets. The stalemate over a project to connect several Pacific Islands underlines one of many potential stumbling blocks: geopolitics.

The former Huawei Marine Networks, now called HMN Technologies and majority owned by Shanghai-listed Hengtong Optic-Electric, submitted a bid for the $73 million undersea cable priced more than 20% below Western rivals. The World Bank-led project declined to award a contract, deeming all the bids non-compliant, according to Reuters.

Chinese telecommunications firms, especially Huawei Technologies, are very unpopular in Washington. The planned Micronesian cable would connect to another that feeds Guam, a U.S. territory with military significance, and D.C. had expressed security concerns.

The Department of Justice last year opposed the Hong Kong link in a transpacific cable project backed by Alphabet’s Google and Facebook on similar grounds, according to Politico. The internet usually works, but it’s sometimes despite the best efforts of stakeholders, not because of them.