China tests submarine-launched missile, advancing its sea-based nuclear deterrent

For submarine deterrence, the missile is only the visible part. The harder task is stealth, communications and command-and-control, because a boat that must rise, transmit too often or spend too long outside secure patrol areas becomes easier to track and less survivable. In China, the Communist Party’s insistence on military loyalty and centralized control makes managing a launch-ready submarine force as political as it is technical.

U.S. officials monitored the launch and called it an unarmed intercontinental-range ballistic missile test. Chinese officials framed it as routine annual military training, said it was not aimed at any country or target, and dismissed some outside coverage as “distortion and hype.” The State Department called on Beijing to enter meaningful arms-control talks and adopt a regularized notification arrangement for intercontinental-range ballistic missile and space launches.

The missile flew into the southern Pacific Ocean near the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, established by the 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga. China signed Protocol 3 in February 1987 and ratified it in October 1988. New Zealand was told only hours beforehand, while Penny Wong called the launch destabilizing and part of a rapid Chinese military buildup that lacks transparency and reassurance. Japan’s defense ministry urged Beijing to rethink missile testing so projectiles would not fly over Japan or create other security risks.