The State Department ratcheted up criticism of China on Thursday for failing to provide sufficient advance notification of a nuclear-capable missile test in the South Pacific on Monday.
Beijing notified the United States a few hours before the flight test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile but failed to provide details on the test, according to a State Department official.
“Launching nuclear-capable missiles without participating in a regularized mechanism for advanced notification is irresponsible,” the official said in a statement to The Washington Times.
The nuclear-capable missile identified in regional reports as either a JL-2 or newer JL-3 intercontinental range missile was fired from the Chinese coast and flew more than 4,000 miles into an impact area in the South Pacific.
“China’s notification to the United States came only a few hours before the launch and failed to provide sufficient detail, falling considerably short of standards adopted by all other P5 nuclear weapon states,” the official said, referring to the five U.N. Security Council permanent member nations: the United States, France, Russia, Britain and China, all nuclear powers.
The test, which flew close to the U.S. island of Guam, was criticized or condemned by several regional states, including Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
“The test occurred amid China’s rapid and opaque nuclear weapons buildup and is of great concern to the region,” the official said.
“We urge Beijing to engage in meaningful discussions on strategic stability and arms control,” the official said, adding that the U.S. “remains steadfast in its defense commitments to our allies and partners.”
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the test was “routine” and part of annual military training aimed at verifying the reliability, safety and effectiveness of its weapons.
“The activity complies with international law and customary international practice and is not directed at any specific country or target,” she said.
China released relevant information in a “timely manner” and notified the United States and other nations before the test. The notification shows openness and transparency, Ms. Mao said.
The spokeswoman said U.S. criticism of the test was “a typical example of double standards and hegemonism.”
“The U.S. needs to view the development of China’s national defense and military in an objective and rational light and earnestly uphold global strategic stability,” she said.
The State Department official said that despite the short advance notice, the United States monitored the missile launch that impacted the southern Pacific Ocean.
Military analysts said the short notification is in line with China’s excessive secrecy regarding its nuclear forces that remain the most closely guarded information held by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese officials believe providing any information to the United States on its strategic forces undermines their deterrent value, according to a Chinese official quoted in leaked State Department documents more than a decade ago.
Lengthy advance notification of similar tests by the United States and Russia has been a long-standing practice for missile and other nuclear tests.
That type of notification deliberately allows each side to use aircraft and ships to monitor the tests and obtain valuable data on adversary nuclear systems, an approach that U.S. and Russian leaders have argued promotes stability.
In the case of China’s Monday launch, greater notification could have given the United States more time to gather intelligence on the missile.
The U.S. military uses two entities for foreign missile monitoring: the Strategic Reconnaissance Operations program and the Defense Special Missile and Aerospace Center.
Those units would have dispatched intelligence-gathering ships to the area near the tests, normally in response to notice-to-mariners and notice-to-airmen of closure areas along the planned route for the test.
In late June, the Navy missile tracking ship USNS Howard O. Lorenzen was spotted off China’s coast in the Yellow Sea, according to ship-tracking data reported by Newsweek.
A second ocean surveillance ship, the USNS Victorious, was operating in the South China Sea until early June.
A Taiwan national security official disclosed a map this week showing the flight of the Chinese submarine-launched missile originating from the Chinese coast north of Hong Kong.
An Air Force RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft that gathers both electronic data and images on ballistic missile tests, also was identified in the Yellow Sea on June 24, according to open-source flight tracking information.
The Yellow Sea assets are likely focused on North Korea, which regularly conducts missile tests.
The South China Sea vessel could intercept signals from the Chinese missile from a location in that waterway.
The types of information sought by the U.S. military on the Chinese military would be the shape, heat resistance and speed of the missile’s dummy warhead.
Chinese missile tests in the open ocean like the one on Monday are rare and the short notice was likely a bid by Beijing to hide the missile’s capability, said a former military official.
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