US flags China’s ‘rapid & opaque nuclear weapons build-up’ after ICBM test-launch in Pacific

After China test-launched an unarmed missile from a submarine in the Pacific Ocean, the United States on Monday warned that China’s “rapid and opaque” build-up of nuclear weapons is of “great concern”.

China on Monday test-fired a long-range missile with a dummy warhead into the Pacific. The launch came hours after Australia and Fiji signed a mutual defence agreement, which has widely been seen as a move to counter Chinese aggression in the region.

While China did not specify the missile it launched, the US Department of State said it was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that landed in the southern Pacific Ocean.

State Department Spokesperson Thomas Pigott said that while the United States was working harder than ever to prevent nuclear proliferation, China was doing the opposite.

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“Beijing’s rapid and opaque nuclear weapons buildup is of great concern to the region and the world. We continue to urge China to engage in meaningful arms control discussions and commit to a regularised notification arrangement for all intercontinental-range ballistic missile and space launches consistent with commitments made by all other P5 members,” Pigott further said.

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Even as President Donald Trump has spent the past 16 months scolding allies and appeasing Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Pigott said that the administration “remains steadfast in our defense commitments to our allies and partners”.

It was the first such launch in two years, and only the second such launch overall. It was not clear where the missile was launched from or where it landed.

‘China probing reactions from US and Pacific nations’

With such launches, China is not just testing its own capabilities, but also probing reactions from countries in the region as well as the United States, according to John Blaxland, a former Australian military intelligence officer who teaches international security at the Australian National University.

“What China is doing, like they’re doing with Taiwan, is probing and testing and incrementally acclimatising intrusive, assertive, authoritarian behavior,” Blaxland told The New York Times.

While China did not specify the missile it launched, it appeared to have launched the JL-3, a new generation of nuclear-capable ICBMs, according to Jeffrey Lewis, who studies China’s nuclear weapons modernisation at Middlebury College.

Lewis said the region should expect more such tests as the Chinese approach appears to have fundamentally changed.

“It suggests a new era of testing where every system will get its moment in the sun. The Chinese have historically tested their ICBMs less than other countries. I think that was political and now those politics have changed, and I think they’re adopting an approach of testing more. They’re willing to pay the political costs of that in a way that they weren’t in the past,” Lewis told The Times.