China conducted an unusual submarine-launched ballistic missile test in the Pacific Ocean on Monday, prompting criticism from New Zealand and Australia for threatening regional peace and stability.
A People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine “launched a strategic missile carrying a dummy warhead into the relevant international waters of the Pacific Ocean and accurately landed within the designated area,” a statement from PLA Navy spokesperson Senior Colonel Wang Xuemeng said.
“This test launch was a routine part of China’s annual military training schedule,” Wang said, adding that “relevant countries” had been notified of the test in advance.
“The operation was in accordance with international law and practice and did not target any specific country or objective,” Wang said.
CNN has reached out to China’s Ministry of Defense for comment on the test.
The Chinese government has not disclosed what type of missile was tested.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy operates two types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles: the JL-2 and JL-3. Missile experts say the latter has enough range to reach the U.S. mainland from waters off China, including the South China Sea.
China’s main ballistic missile submarines are the Type 094, also known as the Jin-class, of which it operates six.
The Chinese government rarely reports on missile tests, but the JL-3 was first tested in 2018 and again a year later, according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Unwelcome and concerning”
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said China fired a missile on Monday into the waters of the South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone established by the Rarotonga Treaty in 1986. China signed Protocols II and III of the agreement in 1987.
Protocol II requires signatories not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against other states in the zone or their territories. Protocol III prohibits nuclear tests within the zone.
“Earlier today, China notified us of its plans to launch long-range ballistic missiles into the South Pacific,” Peters said.
“New Zealand considers this an unwelcome and concerning development. Like our other Pacific neighbors, we have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing ground for its missile capabilities,” Mr Peters said.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday that the test would “destabilize the region”.
Wong said the test “must be seen in the context of China’s rapid military buildup, lacking transparency and reassurance about its intentions in the region’s expectations,” adding that it would be up to China to “speak its intentions.”
New Zealand’s Peters said the Chinese test brought back memories of 2024, when the People’s Liberation Army tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in the region.
“As a region, we should not sit back and allow these tests to become routine and routine,” Peters said.
However, missile tests are routine for nuclear-armed states.
For example, the US Navy conducted four tests of the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile off the coast of Florida last September, according to a press release.
India test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile in December, and Russia test-fired an SLBM in October last year.
China is increasing its nuclear submarine fleet as part of an overall build-up of its nuclear forces.
China last tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in the Pacific Ocean in September 2024, when it launched a nuclear-capable DF-31B missile from Hainan Island in the South China Sea into the Pacific Ocean near French Polynesia. It was the first time in 44 years that China tested an ICBM in the open ocean.
The Pentagon report notes that China typically conducts missile tests within its borders and in December 2024 launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in quick succession from a training base in the country’s west, “demonstrating its ability to rapidly launch multiple silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).”
The U.S. Department of Defense’s December 2025 report on China’s military capabilities states that the People’s Liberation Army views such tests as “an option for medium- to high-intensity nuclear deterrence operations.”
CNN’s Steven Jiang, Todd Symons and Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.
