With one missile fired over the Pacific Ocean from a submarine lurking off China’s coast, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has proclaimed his determination to build a full suite of nuclear weapons, including sea-based missiles that have long been Beijing’s weak spot.
The missile test on Monday came after China’s military has been battered for years by mass removals of commanders accused of corruption and disloyalty. But Chinese media declared that the test showed the country remained on track to create a full nuclear triad; that is, a range of land-, air- and sea-based weapons that could give Beijing a stronger hand in a regional crisis or war with the United States.
Chinese officials have been muted about the test and its implications. Not the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper controlled by the Communist Party.
“Our national nuclear triad had another upgrade,” the paper said in an article on Tuesday.
“The Liberation Army’s sea-based nuclear force is capable of carrying out stable, reliable strategic counterstrikes from anywhere in the vast open seas of the Pacific Ocean,” it said, citing a Chinese expert.
That claim is hyperbole: China is still some way from operating nuclear-armed submarines undetected and wherever it likes. Even so, the test indicated that China is expanding its undersea nuclear ambitions, and shedding its reluctance to test missiles in international skies and oceans, despite the scrutiny and alarm such exercises set off, several experts said.
