Australia's Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles has declined to disclose where a Chinese nuclear-capable missile, fitted with a dummy warhead, came down in the Pacific Ocean after China test-launched it. Marles told the ABC it was "not something that I can talk about publicly", but described the test as "deeply destabilising", stressing the significance of the capability, the range demonstrated and China's own acknowledgement that the missile could carry a nuclear payload. The matter matters because it points to an expansion of China's long-range strike reach into a region close to Australia and its Pacific neighbours.

According to Chinese state media outlet Xinhua, a People's Liberation Army Navy strategic nuclear submarine launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile carrying a simulated training warhead into the high seas of the Pacific at 12.01pm on Monday. The head of Taiwan's national security council, Joseph Wu, shared an image tracking the missile's path across Micronesia and Melanesia before it fell into the ocean around 1,000km north-east of the Solomon Islands. The ABC reported that the missile flew over Pacific nations' Exclusive Economic Zones.