Waikato prof calls for Pacific missile ban after China test
Tuesday, 7 July 2026
New Zealand should lead an international push to calm troubled waters with an outright ban on all missile testing in the Pacific, a Waikato University professor says.
This comes after China launched a long-range ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean on Monday.
International law expert Alexander Gillespie said the move was “definitely unfriendly”, and warned that global regulation on nuclear weaponry was in freefall.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said China carried out the “unwelcome” test within hours of informing the Government.
“We, like our neighbours in other Pacific countries, have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing site for missile capability,” he said.
Speaking to the Waikato Times, Gillespie said it was legal to test weapons in the high seas or the airspace above.
He flagged that there was no legal requirement to give advance notice, and China had done New Zealand a courtesy by doing so before launching the nuclear-capable missile.
“The risk is that countries can get completely freaked out by what looks like an incoming missile. And so there's a lot of confidence-building mechanisms that could be added to international law that don't yet exist, but fundamentally it’s not illegal. However, it’s definitely unfriendly.”
Given the size of the ocean, the fact that it had landed “in our backyard” suggested there was an intention behind the move, he said.
For example, the Chinese government could have been annoyed by the recent defence treaty between Australia and Fiji, or by the Solomon Islands starting to renegotiate their relationship with China, or by New Zealand’s negotiations with the Cook Islands.
“It could be any number of things, but whichever one it is, they are sending a signal, and that signal is that if war broke out, they can hit the region with nuclear-capable missiles.”
Australia and New Zealand would now express concern, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters was doing a good job in that regard, he said.
However, smaller Pacific countries would be anxious about avoiding threats and feeling pressure to align themselves one way or another.
This was a tragedy because Pacific countries should be trying to find many areas of cooperation with non-traditional countries like China, for example over sustainable development, economic development, and environmental concerns.
“We shouldn't be in this kind of game whereby we're finding their missiles coming down to land in our waters, but as we escalate our military budgets, it's pushing in the wrong direction.”
He would like to see New Zealand lead a push to turn the South Pacific into “a region akin to Antarctica”, with minimal military exercises.
In this scenario, the use and testing of all missiles — not only those capable of carrying a nuclear weapon — would be prohibited, and more emphasis put on confidence-building measures.
“It would be a step forward because… this is the third year in a row now that China has done an intrusion into our backyard, so to speak, and we don't want this to become an annual thing.”
A missile testing ban in the Pacific would have to apply consistently, not just to China, but also to America, and this could be a good thing, he said.
International arms controls were in freefall, and there were very few significant agreements on what nuclear weapons could be produced, or how many a country could stockpile.
“We are at one of the most dangerous points since the end of the Second World War, with the lack of oversight of international control of nuclear weapons.”
This was partly due to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the leaders of the world’s two major nuclear powers, but partly due to the buildup of countries such as China.
“Mr Trump walked away from the last bilateral agreement with Russia because he said it doesn't cover China, and Trump's right on that… China is rapidly moving towards 1000 nuclear weapons.”