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China fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean for the first time in 44 years on Wednesday, a show of force set to fuel concerns in the US and among its neighbours.
The test, Beijing’s first major missile launch since twin hypersonic weapons tests in the summer of 2021, comes as the People’s Liberation Army is conducting intensive air and naval drills around the region and ahead of a call between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden expected in the coming weeks.
The ICBM carrying a dummy warhead was launched into international waters at 8.44am, China’s defence ministry said, adding that it was a “routine arrangement in our annual training plan” in line with international law and not directed against any country or target.
But observers interpreted the launch as a political message, saying it could heighten concerns in the US about Beijing’s modernisation of its nuclear weapons.
“They are signalling that China has the capability to hit US territory with nuclear weapons,” said Lin Ying-yu, a Taiwanese PLA expert. “This show of force could be intended to give them more bargaining power in the upcoming call between Xi and Biden.”
In July 2021, the PLA launched a rocket that used a “fractional orbital bombardment” system to propel a nuclear-capable “hypersonic glide vehicle” around the Earth for the first time. It held a second hypersonic test the following month.
Analysts said the Rocket Force, the PLA arm in charge of conventional and nuclear missile operations, uses ranges in Xinjiang or the Bohai Sea as target areas in almost all its tests.
“It is very rare for them to use a range other than these two as an ICBM firing range, the last time being in 1980,” said Hsu Yen-chi, a researcher at the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies think-tank in Taipei.
Beijing did not specify which missile it tested on Wednesday or the launch location. But four security officials in Asia said the launch came out of Hainan, southern China, and was assessed to be a road-mobile ICBM such as the Dongfeng-41.
“It doesn’t seem to have been launched from a [Rocket Force] base or the Wenchang Space Launch centre. Most likely, it was launched from a coastal area,” said Duan Dang, a maritime security analyst based in Vietnam.
China, Japan, the Philippines, the US and French Polynesia published navigational warnings of potential space debris in several areas in the South China Sea, the Luzon Strait, the Philippine Sea and waters in the south Pacific between Tokelau and Tahiti, indicating that Beijing had notified some countries.
However, it only informed them of a “space flight” event and did not mention a planned ICBM test, the officials said.
Two senior Japanese officials said the ICBM did not traverse space over Japanese territory. “[But] the launch, along with their recent intrusions of military aircraft and vessels into our territory, is regarded as serious provocation to the stability of this region,” said one of the officials.
Lin said the test could indicate the increasing maturity of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, which the PLA uses for missile guidance.
He added that it could also reflect an effort by the Rocket Force to show that its combat power had not been weakened by Xi’s purges of the force’s leadership and an ongoing anti-corruption crackdown.
China, which in the past kept only a small number of nuclear warheads to allow it to retaliate against an enemy’s nuclear strike, is now engaged in a rapid expansion of its warhead and missile launcher arsenal.
This build-up could transform China into a peer of the US and Russia, the world’s two leading nuclear powers, by the early 2030s, according to US defence experts.
Beijing’s increasing nuclear strength and its opaque intentions have triggered a debate in Washington on whether and how the US needs to expand and adjust its own nuclear capabilities and posture.
China and the US started nuclear talks last year after a meeting between Xi and Biden, but China suspended them in July.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had observed “recent intensive missile launch drills and other training activities” by the Chinese military.
For the first time, all three Chinese aircraft carriers were at sea simultaneously on Wednesday.
The Liaoning, the PLA’s first carrier, is conducting a training mission in the western Pacific, while the second carrier, the Shandong, is in the South China Sea, and China’s newest carrier, the Fujian, is undergoing sea trials.
According to Japan’s military, another PLA Navy flotilla entered the Sea of Okhotsk on Monday as Chinese and Russian naval ships trained together in the vicinity of Japan.
By conducting the ICBM test at the same time as the other drills, “the PLA is flexing their muscles with all-domain capabilities”, said James Chen, a professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.
