CANBERRA — Australia received only limited warning before China test-fired a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine into the South Pacific in July, officials told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday.
Sarah deZoeten, a first assistant secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said several Chinese “notice to airmen” alerts issued the day before the July 6 launch “referred to hazardous operations or space debris” but “lacked some detail.” Australian officials were contacted directly by China with about two hours’ notice on the day.
The test came just hours after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong signed two treaties with Fiji in Suva. “I was in Suva with the prime minister to sign the Vuvale Union and the Ocean of Peace Alliance, so you can draw the inference,” Wong told the hearing, Crikey reported.
China said earlier this month that it used its third-generation Changzheng nuclear submarines for the test, the first time it had launched such a missile from a submarine rather than from land.
Pacific Islands Forum leaders expressed “concern” over the test in a September communique, with Nauru dissenting. Wong said she raised it with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Manila in late July, calling the test “destabilising.”
Sources: Crikey
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