In a move that has ignited diplomatic tension across the Pacific region, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy completed a successful test launch of a long-range ballistic missile on Monday, fired from a nuclear-powered submarine in the South Pacific. The official Xinhua News Agency, whose report was later republished by China’s Ministry of Defense, confirmed the launch occurred at 12:01 p.m. local time and carried an inert dummy warhead.
This 2024 test marks only the second such Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile trial in the Pacific in more than four decades. China’s last comparable launch in international Pacific waters took place two years ago, which itself was the first such exercise since 1980. Chinese authorities have framed the test as a standard component of annual routine military training, emphasizing that the activity fully complies with international law and established global practice, and was not targeted at any specific nation or entity. Military analysts note the test follows a template long used by the United States for regular testing of its own ballistic missile arsenal, and interpret the exercise as a public demonstration of China’s expanding status as a global military superpower.
The test has drawn sharp condemnation and concern from three Indo-Pacific nations: Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. The test was conducted within the boundaries of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, a region established under the 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga that bans all nuclear weapons testing and deployment across the area. China ratified the treaty’s protocols in 1987, committing not to conduct nuclear tests within the zone or threaten the use of nuclear weapons against zone signatories with territory in the region.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press that Wellington only received advance notification of the planned test hours before launch, despite longstanding regional opposition to such military activity in the zone. “It appears that despite our long-standing concerns about this type of activity, China carried out the test within hours of informing us,” Peters said.
Notably, the missile test coincided with the same day that Australia and Fiji signed a new mutual defense pact, an agreement widely framed as a move to counter growing Chinese geopolitical influence in the Pacific region. Speaking from Fiji following the test, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong stated that Canberra had made its position clear to Beijing: “Australia has been clear with China that we regard this as destabilizing to the region.”
Japan also joined the criticism, with officials voicing deep unease over China’s expanding military footprint and lack of operational transparency in the region. Japan’s Defense Ministry issued a formal statement calling on Beijing to reconsider its missile testing practices to avoid scenarios where projectiles could fly over Japanese territory or create other unneeded security risks. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara added that “China’s military activities, combined with its lack of transparency, has become a grave concern for Japan and the international society,” pointing to Beijing’s increased military activity around Japanese borders and sustained growth in military spending.
Beijing pushed back against the criticism on the same day, urging regional powers to avoid misreading the exercise. “We hope that the relevant countries will avoid overinterpretation,” a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said. China maintains an official “no first use” nuclear weapons policy, but has prioritized modernization of its nuclear arsenal and military technology as a core pillar of its long-term PLA upgrade strategy.
Current data from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank, shows China operates a fleet of six ballistic missile-armed submarines alongside 59 nuclear-powered attack submarines. In a 2025 report to U.S. Congress on Chinese military capabilities, the Pentagon estimated that China held a stockpile of roughly 600 operational nuclear warheads in 2024, and projected that the PLA is on schedule to deploy more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.
The reporting was led by Graham-McLay from Wellington, New Zealand, with additional contributions from Associated Press correspondents Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and E. Eduardo Castillo in Bangkok.