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The Chinese tracking ship Yuan Wang 5 aroused no particular attention when it sailed into the Fijian capital of Suva last Friday. Why would it? Vessels from China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army navy visited Fiji 20 times between the late 1990s and early 2020s, more than anywhere else in Oceania, according to a 2023 report in The Diplomat, a foreign affairs magazine. Chinese tracking ships can make up to four visits to Fiji in a single year.<\/p>\n
Yuan Wang 5\u2019s latest visit, however, proved to be anything but standard. The ship arrived three days before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese landed in Suva to meet his Fijian counterpart, Sitiveni Rabuka, and lingered at port as the leaders sipped kava and signed a historic new military alliance.<\/p>\n
It remained there just hours later as China fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile, fitted with a dummy warhead, thousands of kilometres across the Pacific, landing near the tiny island states of Tuvalu and Nauru. Two other Chinese tracking ships, Yuan Wang 3 and Yuan Wang 6, were stationed near the Federated States of Micronesia.<\/p>\n
Military experts have little doubt that the vessels, which are fitted with sophisticated surveillance equipment, were hoovering up information about the missile launch and feeding it back to Beijing. \u201cThe significance of that vessel being berthed in Fiji\u2019s capital in the same week Fiji signed its first defence alliance with Australia won\u2019t be lost on anyone,\u201d says Mark Douglas, from maritime intelligence company Starboard.<\/p>\n
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The Yuan Wang 5 docked in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. It has visited Fiji 20 times and is fitted with sophisticated surveillance equipment.AP<\/p>\n
Beijing described the missile launch as part of its \u201croutine annual military training program\u201d, an almost comical understatement of its true significance. Monday\u2019s test marked the first time that the Chinese military had launched a ballistic missile from a submarine into international waters. Its most recent ballistic missile launch into international waters in 2024, its first since 1980, was fired from land on Hainan Island.<\/p>\n
Such tests require weeks and probably months of planning, meaning it was not a rapid response to the signing of the Fiji-Australia treaty. However, Graham Fletcher, who served as Australia\u2019s ambassador to China from late 2019 to early 2024, says he believes it would have to be a \u201cbrilliant coincidence\u201d for the missile launch to have so precisely paired with Albanese\u2019s visit to Fiji.<\/p>\n
Beijing was sending a \u201cdeliberate signal\u201d to the Pacific with the test, the veteran diplomat and China expert says. The message: \u201cYou can play around and sign bits of paper, but we have the raw capability. They are saying, \u2018We can do it, and we will do it.\u2019\u201d Others, such as former senior US State Department official Frank Rose, speculated<\/a> that the test was intended to put on a show of force ahead of this week\u2019s NATO summit in Turkey and to coincide with joint naval exercises with Russia.<\/p>\n Either way, the launch was a forceful assertion of power over the largest ocean on earth, an area spanning more than 165 million square kilometres.<\/p>\n Sam Roggeveen, head of the Lowy Institute\u2019s international security program, says it is clear that the missile launch was a technical success. But there is still much we do not know about the test, including exactly what type of missile China test-fired. There has been widespread speculation it was the new JL-3 missile, but other experts believe it was the older JL-2 missile, which has a shorter range. As for the striking timing of the test, Roggeveen says: \u201cWhen these things happen, we overdo the subtext and underdo the text. The text is that when you have nuclear weapons, you need to make sure they work and that they are reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rather than fixate on the timing of the test, Roggeveen urges Australians not to miss the fundamental point: our biggest trading partner is also a rapidly advancing nuclear superpower. China has built up a stockpile of about 600 nuclear warheads, and may have amassed about 1500 operational nuclear warheads by 2035 \u2013 about the same as Russia and the United States. David Johnston, the outgoing head of the Australian Defence Force, this week expressed his concern that China\u2019s dramatic military modernisation is occurring without enough transparency of intent or reassurance to nations such as Australia.<\/p>\n The crucial fact of this week\u2019s test was that it was fired from a nuclear-powered submarine, rather than from land. Nuclear-powered submarines are stealthy and can travel vast distances without refuelling. This gives China the capacity to fire nuclear warheads far from its shores and respond if its land-based nuclear arsenal is attacked (a so-called second strike capability).<\/p>\n Roggeveen, who last month published a detailed study of China\u2019s military capabilities, says: \u201cChina is at the beginning of a nuclear-powered submarine building boom. Soon they will be producing more nuclear-powered submarines than the US.\u201d<\/p>\n This means that this week\u2019s test is just a preview of what is to come. \u201cWe should regard this as the beginning of a trend towards more and more frequent testing of such weapons because the arsenal is going to grow,\u201d Roggeveen says.<\/p>\n The implications for the Indo-Pacific are profound, especially when one considers the terrifying possibility of a conflict erupting between the US and China, perhaps over the self-governing island of Taiwan. For Australia, however, this week\u2019s events have opened up diplomatic opportunities as it competes ferociously with China for influence in the region.<\/p>\n Far from accepting the missile launch as routine, many Pacific leaders responded to China\u2019s behaviour with alarm and anger. Albanese, who prides himself on stabilising relations with Beijing since Labor\u2019s return to office in 2022, shrugged off his usual caution to label the launch \u201ca provocative act by China, which does destabilise the region\u201d. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale said: \u201cChina is a good friend of Solomon Islands, but this is not something a friend does. This is not good in our region.\u201d Tuvalu\u2019s prime minister, Feleti Teo, expressed \u201cgrave and serious concern and disappointment\u201d, while Palau\u2019s president, Surangel Whipps Jr, said he was \u201cshocked and deeply concerned about this kind of behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n Tongan Prime Minister Lord Fatafehi Fakaf\u0101nua tells this masthead that \u201cany escalation to militarise the ocean is something that we join the rest of the Pacific family in not supporting. That goes for all superpowers\u201d. Asked whether the missile launch damaged China\u2019s image in the region, he said: \u201cI think it\u2019s created tension in the Pacific, and some of my colleagues in the Pacific have been quite vocal about that. So let\u2019s just say it\u2019s caused a bit of a stir.\u201d<\/p>\n Fakaf\u0101nua describes the timing of the test as \u201cinteresting\u201d, noting not only did it coincide with the signing of the Fiji-Australia Ocean of Peace Alliance, but Tonga\u2019s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The Treaty of Rarotonga already formalises the South Pacific as a nuclear weapon-free zone.<\/p>\n China\u2019s defenders point out that the US regularly test-fires long-range nuclear-capable missiles in the Pacific, including an intercontinental ballistic missile test launch last September that travelled more than 4000 kilometres from California to a designated test range in the Marshall Islands. China\u2019s test, however, stood out for its short warning time: only two hours rather than the minimum 24 hours\u2019 notice specified by The Hague Code of Conduct against ballistic missile proliferation. Not all Pacific nations were notified of the test.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described this week\u2019s launch as \u201cdestabilising\u201d, rejects any equivalence between the two superpowers\u2019 behaviour. \u201cPrevious US testing, particularly near the Compact States, has been agreed with or telegraphed to them, and obviously the United States has a particular relationship with those nations,\u201d she tells this masthead. \u201cThere is a distinction with China\u2019s action this week. This was quite a different type of political act.\u201d (The Compact States are the Federated States of Micronesia<\/a>, the Republic of the Marshall Islands<\/a> and the Republic of Palau, which all have special agreements with the United States.)<\/p>\n While most Pacific leaders would prefer no ballistic weapons testing at all, they certainly do not want to see more of it. \u201cChina\u2019s missile test is an own goal for them in the Pacific,\u201d says Lachlan Strahan, Australia\u2019s former high commissioner to Solomon Islands . \u201cThey have done what Pacific Island nations most object to. They are small, but they are proud, and they take their sovereignty seriously. They hate being treated like pawns in a big political game.\u201d<\/p>\n While the missile test dominated this week\u2019s headlines, the Albanese government believes the two treaties struck with Fiji this week, including the new military alliance, will stand the test of time as major foreign policy achievements. They come on top of last year\u2019s Pukpuk Treaty<\/a> with Papua New Guinea, and treaties with Tuvalu, Nauru and (as of last week) Vanuatu. New treaties with Tonga and Solomon Islands are in the works and could be completed by the end of the year. New Zealand has already signalled its interest in joining the Ocean of Peace Alliance with Australia and Fiji. While the content of the various agreements is wide-ranging, the pacts are undergirded by a core Australian objective: preventing China from establishing a permanent security presence in the region and locking in Australia as the region\u2019s partner of choice.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick These goals seemed far from assured when Labor returned to power in 2022, just weeks after Solomon Islands signed a sweeping security pact<\/a> with China. Wong, who described that pact as \u201cthe worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific by an Australian government since World War II\u201d, embarked on a Pacific blitz after taking on the job, including visits to Fiji and the Solomons, and has returned regularly since. Albanese has attended every Pacific Islands Forum meeting since becoming prime minister and walked the Kokoda Track with his PNG counterpart, James Marape.<\/p>\n \u201cLabor was really clear that the Pacific was a priority for us, and we had to change how we engage,\u201d Wong says. \u201cWe needed to engage with respect, we needed to listen, we needed to act on specific priorities. You\u2019ve seen the result of this in a number of transformational breakthroughs in the Pacific, including those achieved this week.\u201d<\/p>\n Strahan, who represented Australia in the Solomons when the 2022 deal with China was struck, credits the government for \u201cdeliberately and steadily\u201d amassing a web of agreements in the Pacific, saying that many \u201cwould have been unimaginable not long ago\u201d.<\/p>\n Strahan, who last year published a memoir, The Curious Diplomat, about his foreign service career, describes China\u2019s missile test as a mistake that will drive Pacific nations closer to Australia. \u201cIf they thought they could cower Pacific nations by lobbing a nuclear-capable missile into the South Pacific, they are misreading it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Lowy Institute Pacific Islands program director<\/a> Oliver Nobetau agrees that the test has provided \u201cdiplomatic ammo\u201d to Australia as it seeks to entrench its influence in the region. \u201cThey can tell Pacific countries, \u2018This is exactly what we are trying to avoid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f39ccd9e2e6354e88173b400d33616c8010f2de3.jpeg\")
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese drinks kava with his Fijian counterpart, Sitiveni Rabuka, at a welcome ceremony in Suva.AAP<\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/984de4f24df16c310a0b203ea22417d27ab78d46.jpeg\")
Anthony Albanese in Newcastle, with his Fijian counterpart. Australia is making the most of its sporting and other ties to the Pacific to counteract the strategic threat from China.Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/e8e0888e8bc0f80d991b73ac0efe7006c9e5ccbb.jpeg\")
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