China test-fires ballistic missile from nuclear submarine

Tuesday, 7 July 2026

A Chinese submarine launches a missile in an offshore blockade exercise during the third phase of the Sino-Russian 'Peace Mission 2005' joint military exercise near China's Shandong Peninsula.

China has for the first time test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons from a nuclear submarine, a key step in ensuring that it can match the United States in a doomsday stand-off.

The missile, with a dummy warhead, was fired in the South Pacific on Monday at one minute after noon Beijing time, according to the state news agency Xinhua. 'The missile landed accurately in the designated area,' it said.

Surrounding countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan, were informed beforehand, but the test and its short notice caused protests across the region.

'New Zealand considers this an unwelcome and concerning development,' Winston Peters, the country's foreign minister, said. 'We, like our neighbours in other Pacific countries, have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing site for missile capability.'

Australia described the launch as 'destabilising'. The chief cabinet secretary of Japan, Minoru Kihara, said: 'China's military activities, combined with its lack of transparency, have become a grave concern for Japan and the international society.'

The Taiwanese government's mainland affairs council, which deals with its policies on China, said: 'The Chinese military, by launching a submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile, deliberately displayed military force, heightened tensions in the surrounding region, and undermined regional peace and stability.'

China brushed off the criticism and its foreign ministry downplayed the launch as 'routine'. Its spokeswoman, Mao Ning, said: 'We hope relevant countries will not over-interpret it.'

But state media sent a different message. On Global Times, a nationalist-leaning English-language tabloid, Zhang Junshe, a military affairs expert from a People's Liberation Army think tank, was quoted as saying the test had 'far-reaching significance'.

China has tested intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads before, most recently in 2024. But that was from a land-based launcher.

This was the first submarine missile test since the 1980s, since when China has begun to deploy advanced nuclear submarines, a key tool of nuclear confrontation.

Unlike land-based launchers, they cannot be monitored by satellite. They can stay submerged for long periods and are hard to detect when underwater as they make less noise. That makes them the key launchpad for missiles in the event of a nuclear standoff, which is why Britain's nuclear deterrent is carried on four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines.

'Strategic nuclear submarines are internationally recognised as the most secure platform for secondary nuclear counterstrike capability,' Zhang was quoted as saying.

'Submarines conduct long-term underwater mobile patrols, making them extremely difficult to detect and track, with strong battlefield survivability. Even if land-based and air-based nuclear platforms come under suppression, strategic nuclear submarines operating in the deep ocean retain full nuclear counterstrike capabilities.'

Chairman Mao, while authorising China's development of nuclear weapons in the 1960s, also called them 'paper tigers' as they could not sensibly be used in an actual war, given mutual deterrence. China has also had the strongest 'no first use' policy of the five major nuclear powers, the others being the US, Russia, Britain and France.

For that reason it had, until the last few years, failed to keep up with American and Russian arsenals. But it is now deploying about 100 nuclear warheads a year, as well as putting huge emphasis on improving its nuclear submarine fleet, regarded until recently as lagging behind its western counterparts.