On July 6, China fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile from the South China Sea. It flew roughly 7,200 km (4,500 miles) over open water and splashed down near the Solomon Islands. Australian analysts called it “provocative.” The US State Department criticized China’s lack of transparency. Some even claimed the test was a direct response to Australia’s surprise defense treaty with Fiji, signed the same day.
All of this is overblown. Misunderstanding why China conducted the test risks making a real problem worse.
Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA and the author of a Foreign Policy analysis, argues that Beijing chose the least provocative flight path available, gave 30-minute advance notification to nearby countries, and ran no coordinated propaganda campaign to frame the test as a threat. July 7 is the anniversary of Japan’s 1937 invasion of China, but the test was on July 6, and state media did not link the two.
The real reasons for the test are technical and institutional, not political.
China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent is still young. Its Type 094 submarines only began regular nuclear patrols in 2015. The SLBM system had never been tested at full range. An end-to-end test was necessary to validate missile performance, submarine-launch integration, and the command-and-control system needed to coordinate multiple submarines, a difficult problem given the challenges of underwater communication.
China issued two separate notices to airmen, one for the South China Sea launch area, another for the Bohai Sea, suggesting it tested communications between its northern and southern submarine bastions simultaneously. That is the kind of technical rehearsal any nuclear power would need to conduct.
The institutional context matters too. The PLA Navy has faced sweeping anti-corruption purges that removed most of the Central Military Commission and a former top general accused of leaking nuclear secrets. The Navy needed to prove to Xi Jinping that it can still do its job.
China’s official response was notably muted. The PLA Navy called the launch “a routine arrangement of the annual training” that “complies with international law and international practice, and is not directed at any specific country or target.” State media downplayed the test. Some outlets even argued with more aggressive outlets over its purpose.
The US and Australia are right to be concerned about China’s nuclear buildup. Beijing is constructing roughly 350 new missile silos that are not covered by any transparency regime. But punishing China for following the norms it is supposed to follow, issuing notices, avoiding overflight, giving advance warning, is counterproductive.
“If China concludes that it will receive condemnation regardless,” Eveleth writes, “it has little incentive to continue using those practices.” The US should positively reinforce the behavior it wants to see, as the Biden administration did after China’s 2024 ICBM test, calling it “a step in the right direction.”
Not every missile test is a provocation. Some are just tests.