Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on 6 July 2026 that New Zealand was informed of China's plans to conduct a missile test only hours before the launch took place, and that the government is "deeply concerned" by it.

Xinhua, China's state news agency, reported that the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force conducted a test launch of a strategic missile from a submarine, with a dummy warhead landing in designated Pacific waters. Xinhua described the exercise as a "routine arrangement" within China's annual military training schedule, adding that relevant countries had been notified in advance. Peters disputed the adequacy of that notice. China carried out the test "within hours of informing us," he said.

Peters said the missile landed inside the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga and that China's action "goes against the object and intent of that Treaty." New Zealand is a party to Rarotonga and has long treated the zone's legal status as a cornerstone of its Pacific security posture. "We have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing site for missile capability," Peters said, adding that Wellington would consult Pacific partners about the development.

The Australia-Fiji context

The test came on the same day Australia and Fiji signed what Australian ministers described as a mutual defence treaty — the Australia-Fiji Ocean of Peace Alliance — at a ceremony in Suva. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon confirmed he had spoken with both the Australian and Fijian prime ministers about the new alliance. The Australian newspaper reported that the missile test appeared to be a direct response to the signing of that pact, though Beijing has not said so publicly and RNZ had approached the Chinese Embassy for comment without receiving a response at the time of publication.

Whether the timing was deliberate or coincidental, the juxtaposition will complicate Wellington's already careful navigation between its Five Eyes obligations and its substantial trade relationship with China.

A pattern Peters flagged

Peters explicitly referenced China's September 2024 ICBM test — reported by Reuters at the time as a rare, publicly announced launch into the Pacific — and said he was concerned about a recurring pattern. That earlier test drew criticism from Pacific Island nations including Kiribati, a Chinese-aligned state whose public rebuke was itself notable. The Pacific Small Island Developing States issued broader condemnation of that 2024 launch, and the Arms Control Association recorded it as a PLA Rocket Force exercise announced via the Chinese Defence Ministry.

The US Department of Defense's 2025 Annual Report to Congress noted that China maintains a bilateral arrangement with Russia to notify one another of certain ballistic missile and space launch tests. No equivalent arrangement appears to exist with Pacific nations or with New Zealand — a gap Peters' remarks implicitly underline.

Two tests in under two years, both into the South Pacific, both announced by Xinhua with the "routine training" framing, and both drawing protests from the region. The pattern Peters identified is real. What it means for Wellington's posture toward Beijing is the harder question. New Zealand has generally been slower than Australia to name China as a security concern in official documents, and Peters' language — "deeply concerned," a Treaty violation — is stronger than the register Wellington typically uses with Beijing. Whether it leads to any formal diplomatic step, or remains a statement for the record, will be watched closely in the Press Gallery and in Pacific capitals alike.