China conducts rare submarine-launched ballistic missile test, angering Pacific neighbors

China on Monday conducted a rare test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Pacific Ocean, sparking criticism from New Zealand and Australia for actions that they said threatened peace and stability in the region. A People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine “launched a strategic missile carrying a dummy warhead toward relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean, which landed precisely within the designated waters,” said a statement from Senior Capt. Wang Xuemeng, a spokesperson for the PLA Navy. “This test launch was a routine part of China’s annual military training schedule,” said Wang, who added that “relevant nations” were informed in advance about the test.

“The operation was in accordance with international law and practice, targeting no specific country or objective,” Wang said. The missile traveled over the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu and landed around the EEZ border of either Kiribati or Tuvalu, a regional source familiar with the matter told CNN. The US State Department said it had monitored the launch of a nuclear-capable but unarmed “intercontinental-range ballistic missile,” in a statement attributed to a spokesperson. “Beijing’s rapid and opaque nuclear weapons buildup is of great concern to the region and the world,” it said, adding that it urged China “to engage in meaningful arms control discussions.” Beijing did not say what type of missile was tested. CNN has asked China’s Defense Ministry for comment on the test. The PLA Navy operates two types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the JL-2 and the JL-3.

The latter has sufficient range to reach the continental United States from waters off the coast of China, including the South China Sea, according to missile experts. China’s main ballistic-missile submarine is the Type 094, also known as the Jin class, of which it operates six vessels. Beijing rarely reports its missile tests, but according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the JL-3 was first tested in 2018 and then once more a year later. ‘Unwelcome and concerning’ New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said Monday that China fired the missile into waters of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, established in 1986 by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China signed protocols II and III of the pact in 1987. Protocol II calls on signatories not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against other nations or their territories within the zone; protocol III bans nuclear testing in the zone.

“Earlier today, China informed us of its plans to launch a long-range ballistic missile into the South Pacific,” Peters said. “New Zealand considers this an unwelcome and concerning development. We, like our neighbors in other Pacific countries, have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing site for missile capability,” Peters said. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Monday called the test “destabilizing to the region.” The test must be viewed “in the context of a rapid military build-up by China, which is lacking in the transparency and reassurance as to intent that the region expects,” Wong said, adding that she would leave it up to China to “speak to its intent.” A Japanese government statement expressed “serious concerns regarding China’s increasingly active military activities” and urged Beijing to reconsider ballistic missile testing. The self-ruled island of Taiwan – which Beijing has vowed to “reunify” with, by force if necessary – was also critical of the launch. Presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said Beijing’s actions had “caused unease” in the region and further highlighted “China’s increasingly obvious ambitions for expansion in the Western Pacific.”

New Zealand’s Peters said the Chinese test brought back memories of 2024, when the PLA test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in the region. “We as a region should not sit by and allow such tests to become normalized or routine,” Peters said. But missile tests are routine for nuclear powers. For instance, the US Navy last September conducted four tests of its Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile off Florida, according to a press release. India tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile in December, and Russia test-launched an SLBM last October. China has been building up its nuclear-powered sub fleet as part of an overall boost to its nuclear forces. China last tested an ICBM launched into the Pacific in September 2024, firing a DF-31B nuclear-capable missile from Hainan Island in the South China Sea into the open Pacific near French Polynesia.

It was China’s first test of an ICBM into the open ocean in 44 years. The US Defense Department report says that China usually conducts missile tests within its own borders, noting that in December 2024 it launched several ICBMs in quick succession from a training base in the country’s west, “indicating the ability to rapidly launch multiple silo-based ICBMs.” The December 2025 US Defense Department report on China’s military power says the PLA views such tests as “an option for medium-to-high intensity nuclear deterrence operations.”

Source: China conducts rare submarine-launched ballistic missile test, angering Pacific neighbors | CNN

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China conducts rare submarine-launched ballistic missile test, angering Pacific neighbors

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