Beijing's Long-Range Missile Test Rattles Western Allies as Russia Reportedly Eyes Poland and NATO's Resolve

BEIJING — China fired a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, the first such test in nearly two years, triggering swift condemnation from New Zealand, Australia and Japan and reviving anxieties across the region about the pace of Beijing’s military expansion.

A submarine of the People’s Liberation Army Navy “launched a strategic missile carrying a dummy warhead toward relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean, which landed precisely within the designated waters,” said Senior Capt. Wang Xuemeng, a spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

Beijing did not disclose what type of missile was fired. As CNN noted, the People’s Liberation Army Navy maintains two classes of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the JL-2 and the JL-3, and missile experts say the latter has enough range to strike the continental United States from waters off China’s coast, including the South China Sea — meaning that whichever variant was tested Monday, the underlying capability on display is one that realistically extends the threat envelope to North America itself, not merely to the Indo-Pacific theater.

New Zealand’s foreign minister called the test part of a recurring pattern by China, while Australia’s foreign minister described it as destabilizing to the region.