China Confirms Strategic Missile Test From Nuclear Submarine Into Pacific

China's navy has confirmed it successfully test-fired a strategic missile from a nuclear submarine into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, following advance warnings issued to countries in the region that such a launch was imminent, AFP reported.

Navy spokesperson Wang Xuemeng said the missile, carrying a training simulation warhead, was launched at 12:01pm and landed accurately in a designated area of the high seas. Wang described the test as a routine part of China's annual military training and said relevant countries had been notified beforehand.

Papua New Guinea's Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko confirmed he had received a direct call from the Chinese ambassador ahead of the launch. A New Zealand government source also told AFP that Beijing had alerted Wellington to the upcoming test, though neither party disclosed where the missile was expected to come down.

The launch coincided with the start of annual joint naval exercises between China and Russia off Qingdao, a major military port on China's eastern coast. It was not immediately clear whether the missile test formed part of those drills.

It Was Not First

Monday's launch follows a similar exercise in September 2024, when China's Rocket Force fired a dummy warhead into waters near French Polynesia, its first long-range missile launch over international waters in more than four decades. Analysts identified that projectile as likely being one of China's advanced Dong Feng-31 missiles, a weapon capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead. The area where it landed falls within a zone designated nuclear-free under an international treaty.

New Zealand's Defence Force has previously cautioned internally that China's growing naval activity and ballistic missile tests in the Pacific were likely to become a persistent feature of the region's security landscape, according to a document obtained by AFP last month. Monday's launch adds fresh weight to those concerns, coming as Beijing continues to assert a more visible military presence across the wider Indo-Pacific.