At 12:01 p.m. local time on July 6, China fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the South China Sea, flying roughly 4,500 miles over open water before splashing down near the Solomon Islands. The test—the first such one in decades—involved a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads and immediately prompted speculation that Beijing was attempting to send a message, either to signal its strength or its displeasure toward states in the region. Some Australian analysts even argued that the test was a direct response to Australia’s surprise defense treaty with Fiji, which was signed that day.
These interpretations read too much into China’s actions and underestimate both the preparation required for such a test and the bureaucratic and technical reasons for conducting it. Instead, we should interpret this test as an effort to validate critical technologies, test operational concepts, and demonstrate to China’s political leadership that the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) nuclear forces are capable of carrying out their mission if called upon.
At 12:01 p.m. local time on July 6, China fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the South China Sea, flying roughly 4,500 miles over open water before splashing down near the Solomon Islands. The test—the first such one in decades—involved a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads and immediately prompted speculation that Beijing was attempting to send a message, either to signal its strength or its displeasure toward states in the region. Some Australian analysts even argued that the test was a direct response to Australia’s surprise defense treaty with Fiji, which was signed that day.
These interpretations read too much into China’s actions and underestimate both the preparation required for such a test and the bureaucratic and technical reasons for conducting it. Instead, we should interpret this test as an effort to validate critical technologies, test operational concepts, and demonstrate to China’s political leadership that the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) nuclear forces are capable of carrying out their mission if called upon.
China has compelling technical reasons to conduct SLBM tests. Although Beijing has pursued a sea-based nuclear deterrent since the 1960s, its first ballistic missile submarine suffered from significant technical problems and rarely went to sea.
Only in the 2000s did China begin deploying the more capable Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. Those submarines reportedly began conducting regular patrols with nuclear warheads in 2015—relatively recently compared to China’s land-based nuclear forces, which have been operational for decades and benefit from extensive testing data. Yet until July 6, China had never before tested an SLBM to its full range.
There are good geographic reasons for this lack of real-world testing. China’s access to the broader Pacific is blocked by the first island chain—consisting of Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines—which constrains its ability to test long-range missiles without overflying nearby countries as well as its ability to deploy submarines into the Pacific without being detected by U.S. or Japanese naval forces.
Because of these obstacles, China rarely tests long-range missiles over the Pacific and instead has chosen to operate its nuclear submarines in bastions—heavily defended areas in the South China Sea and the Bohai Sea where submarines can hide in crowded waters close to the mainland. While this posture enhances survivability, it limits opportunities to conduct testing under realistic operational circumstances. China can test individual components separately, but it cannot easily test whether missiles, submarines, and especially command-and-control systems can seamlessly work together in real-world conditions.
This requires end-to-end testing, especially to stress-test communications and command and control to ensure that launch orders can be reliably transmitted to multiple submarines simultaneously to execute a nuclear second strike. This is an extraordinarily complex undertaking because submarines are inherently difficult to communicate with, requiring careful coordination and extensive planning. The United States conducts such tests routinely, most recently in September 2025, when it launched a salvo of four test SLBMs off the coast of Florida.
This may have been precisely what China was testing this week. In addition to issuing a notice to airmen (NOTAM) covering the missile’s flight path from the South China Sea, Beijing also issued a separate NOTAM for a missile launch from the Bohai Sea. This suggests that the country may have been exercising both its northern and southern bastions simultaneously, likely evaluating whether its command, control, and communications systems could reliably communicate with nuclear submarines operating in different theaters.
In the end, China launched only a single missile from the South China Sea. This is likely because a launch from the Bohai would have required the missile to fly over South Korea and Japan to reach the designated impact area—an extraordinarily escalatory move that would have jeopardized China’s efforts to portray itself as a responsible nuclear power.
If Beijing’s primary objective had been coercive signaling, then it could have chosen a more provocative flight path; instead, it selected the least politically inflammatory option while also providing nearby countries advanced notification, albeit only 30 minutes before the launch.
China’s public messaging likewise downplayed the test’s significance. The PLA Navy described the launch as “a routine arrangement of the annual training of the PLA Navy” and stated that it “complies with international law and international practice, and is not directed at any specific country or target.” A Foreign Ministry spokesperson also said that the exercise was part of regular military training and was not aimed at any specific country or target. A Defense Ministry spokesperson emphasized that the missile test conforms to international law and that its decision to notify other countries “demonstrates the openness and transparency of the Chinese armed forces.”
State media also downplayed the test—including certain outlets seemingly arguing with other, more aggressive ones over the purpose of the test. Meanwhile, there has been no parallel coordinated media effort to identify the source of China’s displeasure or to pressure regional powers to change their behavior. The only thing that China is clearly attempting to signal is that this was routine.
Some commentators have pointed to the timing of the test, noting that July 7 marks the anniversary of Japan’s full-scale invasion of China in the lead-up to World War II. According to this interpretation, the launch was intended to underscore China’s determination to never again be vulnerable to foreign aggression. But the test occurred on July 6 rather than July 7, and given the Chinese government’s extensive use of coordinated propaganda surrounding politically significant dates, the absence of any official narrative connecting the two suggests the timing was probably coincidental.
Instead, it is likely that the date was chosen months, if not years, ago as part of the PLA Navy’s testing schedule. Exercises of this complexity require significant preparation: Experimental technology must be ready, test missiles prepared, submarines deployed, and wires uncrossed with other parts of the bureaucracy. It is not something that can be decided the week before.
Beyond the technical reasons, there are also institutional reasons why the PLA Navy would be eager to conduct this test. China’s military is under immense scrutiny from the country’s political leadership following sweeping anti-corruption purges that have removed numerous senior officials, including most of the Central Military Commission and a former top general accused of leaking nuclear secrets to the United States. The PLA Navy may want to prove to Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders that it can accomplish the missions that it has been assigned.
The test nevertheless drew condemnation from the United States and countries in the region, with the Australian prime minister calling the move “provocative” and the United States drawing attention to the lack of Chinese transparency on the scope and purpose of its nuclear buildup. These criticisms are valid. China remains unusually secretive about its nuclear modernization program, including the construction in recent years of approximately 350 nuclear missile silos that it has never publicly acknowledged or explained.
But there is little to be gained by scolding China when, as in this case, it is playing by the accepted rules. Although no international legal instruments govern missile tests over international waters, the practice of issuing launch notifications and NOTAMs is a widely accepted—and generally expected—means of reducing the risks associated with such activities. China’s willingness to notify regional countries and issue NOTAMs before testing missiles over the Pacific suggests there may be room for practical risk-reduction measures, including greater transparency about its nuclear decision-making and risk calculus and a willingness to engage the United States during a crisis.
China has historically been reluctant to make use of these risk-reduction tools. The most notable example is the U.S.-China military hotline, where China has a spotty record of picking up the phone. There have been notable exceptions, however. In the fall of 2020, Chinese concerns that the United States might launch an attack prompted then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to call his Chinese counterpart. More recently, the countries have also made modest progress on artificial intelligence risk reduction, including joint declarations on limiting how AI is incorporated into nuclear command and control.
But this progress may be jeopardized if the United States makes mountains out of molehills related to relatively benign Chinese behavior. If China concludes that it will receive condemnation regardless of whether it conforms to best practices, then it has little incentive to continue using those practices. Instead, presenting China with opportunities to be seen as a responsible power in this space will open more doors for future communication on nuclear weapons and risk reduction.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration took this approach after a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch in 2024, when the U.S. Defense Department told reporters, “The PRC did give some advance notification of the ICBM test. This is a step in the right direction to reducing the risks of misperception and miscalculation.” (Positive reinforcement of this kind may have helped encourage China to continue providing advance launch notifications.)
Western analysts have a bad habit of reading too much into Chinese behavior, over-indexing on the assumption that Beijing is trying to send messages with its every move. This habit is counterproductive and encourages onlookers to read malicious intent into innocuous moves likely driven by bureaucratic pressures, which in turn fuels Chinese paranoia about Western intent and makes China less likely to engage in the future.
In the long run, a slower and more cooperative approach on risk reduction will yield better results than demanding that China immediately conform to the United States’ expectations.
