China on Monday carried out a rare check of a submarine-launched ballistic missile within the Pacific Ocean, sparking criticism from New Zealand and Australia for actions that they mentioned threatened peace and stability within the area.
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,” mentioned an announcement 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,” mentioned Wang, who added that “relevant nations” had been knowledgeable prematurely concerning the check.
“The operation was in accordance with international law and practice, targeting no specific country or objective,” Wang mentioned.
NCS has requested China’s Defense Ministry for touch upon the check.
Beijing didn’t say what kind of missile was examined.
The PLA Navy operates two varieties of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the JL-2 and the JL-3. The latter has adequate vary to succeed in the continental United States from waters off the coast of China, together with the South China Sea, based on missile specialists.
China’s fundamental ballistic-missile submarine is the Type 094, also referred to as the Jin class, of which it operates six vessels.
Beijing not often experiences its missile exams, however based on the Missile Defense Project on the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the JL-3 was first examined in 2018 after which as soon as extra a yr later.
‘Unwelcome and concerning’
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters mentioned China fired the missile on Monday 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 to not use or threaten to make use of nuclear weapons towards different nations or their territories throughout the zone; protocol III bans nuclear testing within the zone.
“Earlier today, China informed us of its plans to launch a long-range ballistic missile into the South Pacific,” Peters mentioned.
“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 mentioned.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Monday known as the check “destabilizing to the region.”
The check should be seen “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 mentioned, including that she would go away it as much as China to “speak to its intent.”
New Zealand’s Peters mentioned the Chinese check introduced again recollections of 2024, when the PLA test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile within the area.
“We as a region should not sit by and allow such tests to become normalized or routine,” Peters mentioned.
But missile exams are routine for nuclear powers.
For occasion, the US Navy final September carried out 4 exams of its Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile off Florida, based on a press launch.
India examined a submarine-launched ballistic missile in December, and Russia test-launched an SLBM final October.
China has been build up its nuclear-powered sub fleet as a part of an general enhance to its nuclear forces.
China final examined an ICBM launched into the Pacific in September 2024, firing a DF-31B nuclear-capable missile from Hainan Island within the South China Sea into the open Pacific close to French Polynesia. It was China’s first check of an ICBM into the open ocean in 44 years.
The US Defense Department report says that China often conducts missile exams inside its personal borders, noting that in December 2024 it launched a number of ICBMs in fast succession from a coaching base within the nation’s west, “indicating the ability to rapidly launch multiple silo-based ICBMs.”
The December 2025 US Defense Department report on China’s navy energy says the PLA views such exams as “an option for medium-to-high intensity nuclear deterrence operations.”
NCS’s Steven Jiang, Todd Symons and Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.