China conducted a long-range ballistic missile test on Monday, launching a missile carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean in its first publicly reported launch of its kind in two years.
According to state news agency Xinhua, the missile was launched from a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine at 12:01 p.m. Beijing time.
Xinhua said the missile accurately reached its designated impact area and stressed that the launch was ‘not directed against any specific country or target’.
Chinese authorities did not disclose the exact location where the missile landed, although governments across the region were notified shortly before the launch.
Regional concerns follow missile test
The missile test came as Australia and Fiji announced a mutual defence treaty and a regional security alliance, the latest in a series of security agreements between Canberra and Pacific Island nations.
The previous publicly announced launch took place in September 2024, when China fired an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead across the Pacific Ocean into waters near French Polynesia. It was the first publicly acknowledged Chinese ICBM test in the Pacific region in more than four decades.
Following Monday’s launch, New Zealand expressed concern over the test.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters described the launch as an unwelcome development and said New Zealand, together with other Pacific nations, had no interest in the South Pacific being used as a missile testing area.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong also described the test as destabilising, saying it occurred amid China’s rapid military build-up and concerns over a lack of transparency regarding its intentions.
Japan likewise voiced serious concern over what it described as the intensification of China’s military activities and said it had urged Beijing to reconsider the launch.
Analysts point to possible JL-3 test
China did not identify the type of missile used in the test.
Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar specialising in China’s nuclear weapons modernisation, said the missile was most likely the JL-3, a new-generation intercontinental ballistic missile designed for launch from submarines.
The JL-3 was publicly displayed during a military parade in Beijing last year as part of China’s expanding nuclear arsenal.
Lewis said the latest launch could signal a new phase in China’s weapons testing programme, with more frequent testing of its nuclear-capable missile systems in the years ahead.
He also noted that China has historically conducted fewer intercontinental ballistic missile tests than other countries, but suggested that approach may now be changing.
