Results for China in the Western Pacific

On Monday this week, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) Naval submarine launched a long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a dummy warhead into the South Pacific. The missile appears to have landed in international waters near the EEZ of Taiwan ally Tuvalu. The United States recorded a path of space debris from Japan to the central Pacific. China’s missile test is a display of military force, signalling that the PLA now has a second-strike nuclear deterrent. The splashdown was in the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, established by the Treaty of Rarotonga, which China signed in 1987. - By: Professor Anne-Marie Brady.