China tests submarine-launched ballistic missile and warns neighboring countries

China carried out a rare test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Pacific Ocean on Monday (6), generating criticism from New Zealand and Australia for actions that, according to them, threatened peace and stability in the region.

A People's Liberation Army Navy submarine "launched a strategic missile carrying a dummy warhead toward the relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean, which landed precisely within the designated waters," said a statement from Captain Wang Xuemeng, spokesperson for the PLA Navy.

"This test launch was a routine part of China's annual military training schedule," Wang said, adding that the "nations involved" were informed in advance about the exercise.

"The operation was in accordance with international law and practices, without targeting any specific country or objective," said the captain. CNN has requested comment from China's Ministry of Defense on the test. Beijing did not say what type of missile was tested.

The PLA Navy (People's Liberation Army) operates two types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles: the JL-2 and the JL-3.

The latter has enough range to reach the continental United States from waters close to China's coast, including the South China Sea, according to missile experts.

China's main ballistic missile-launching submarine is the Type 094, also known as the Jin class; the country operates six units of this class.

Beijing rarely publicizes its missile tests, but according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Missile Defense Project, the JL-3 was first tested in 2018 and then again a year later.

"Unwelcome and worrying"
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said China fired the missile on Monday toward waters in the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone, established in 1986 by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China signed protocols II and III of the pact in 1987.

Protocol II determines that signatories do not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against other nations or their territories within the zone; Protocol III prohibits nuclear testing in the region.

"Earlier today, China informed us of its plans to launch a long-range ballistic missile in the South Pacific," Peters said.

"New Zealand considers this an unwelcome and worrying development. We, like our neighbors in other Pacific countries, have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a test site for missile capabilities," said the minister.

New Zealand's Peters said the Chinese test brought back memories of 2024, when the People's Liberation Army test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in the region.

"We as a region must not sit idly by and allow such testing to become normalized or routine," he continued.

However, missile tests are routine for nuclear powers.

For example, the U.S. Navy last September conducted four tests of its submarine-launched Trident ballistic missile off the coast of Florida, according to a press release.

India tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile in December, and Russia test-launched such a missile last October.

China has been expanding its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an overall build-up of its nuclear forces.

The most recent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched by China toward the Pacific occurred in September 2024, when the country fired a nuclear-capable DF-31B missile from Hainan Island in the South China Sea toward the open waters of the Pacific near French Polynesia.

It was the first Chinese test of an ICBM in the open ocean in 44 years.

The U.S. Department of Defense report states that China generally conducts missile tests within its own borders, noting that in December 2024, it launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in rapid succession from a training base in the west of the country, "indicating the ability to rapidly launch multiple silo-based ICBMs."

The U.S. Department of Defense's December 2025 report on China's military power states that the PLA views such tests as "an option for medium-to-high-intensity nuclear deterrence operations."

Source: CNN