China Test-Fires ICBM, Raising Tensions --- Long-range missile carrying dummy warhead landed in the Pacific Ocean

"SINGAPORE -- China said it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, a rare public acknowledgment that is likely to increase tensions with its neighbors.

The ICBM, which was carrying a dummy warhead, fell into "expected sea areas" in the Pacific Ocean, China's Defense Ministry said, without specifying the exact location.

The ministry said the launch, which was carried out by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, was part of routine annual training and "is not directed against any country or target."

Navigational warnings indicated the missile was launched from Hainan island in southern China and landed in the South Pacific, analysts said.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency said Beijing had notified "relevant countries" ahead of the launch, though it didn't say which nations.

Drew Thompson, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote on X that the timing of China's launch appeared to be motivated at least in part by geopolitical frictions with Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

"Timing is everything," wrote Thompson, a former Pentagon official, who said separately that he believed it was Beijing's first public acknowledgment of an ICBM test launch since 1982. "This launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone."

China is developing its nuclear arsenal, including expanding its stockpile of warheads, the Pentagon has said.

One likely motivation in that buildup is to limit the U.S.'s ability to intervene in any conflict over Taiwan.

Wednesday's test could help provide data for modernization efforts, and shows that China is "abandoning some of its previous restraint" when it comes to expanding its nuclear capabilities, said Henrik Stalhane Hiim, a professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.

China's modernization program has come under scrutiny as its rocket forces have been at the center of one of the country's most significant cases of military corruption in recent years. Last year, China purged its defense minister, Li Shangfu, who was formerly the director of a satellite-launch base and director of the military's armaments department.

Beijing later removed nine senior officers from their roles in the legislature, including five who held positions in the PLA Rocket Force, which controls the military's nuclear and conventional missiles. Li and Wei Fenghe, a former defense minister who previously was a commander of the PLA Rocket Force, were expelled from the Communist Party and their cases referred to prosecutors.

China is estimated to have about 500 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has 5,044 and Russia 5,580, said the Federation of American Scientists in March. The Pentagon estimates China will have a stockpile of 1,500 warheads by 2035.

Beijing has long feared encirclement by the U.S. and its allies, and China's ICBM test launch comes amid growing concerns about U.S. missile systems being set up around its periphery. Several years ago, it failed to stop South Korea from installing a U.S. missile-defense system despite a pressure campaign aimed at Seoul. In the past few weeks, it has railed against a U.S. medium-range missile system that has been set up in the northern Philippines.

Separately on Wednesday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said it detected 23 Chinese military aircraft around the island, all but one of which crossed into the island's air-defense identification zone. The region has been on edge as a Russian military reconnaissance plane entered Japan's airspace Monday, prompting Japanese jet fighters to fire warning flares." [1]

1. World News: China Test-Fires ICBM, Raising Tensions --- Long-range missile carrying dummy warhead landed in the Pacific Ocean. Leong, Clarence; Austin Ramzy.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 26 Sep 2024: A.7.