China’s military conducted a flight test of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile last week, a launch that came a month after the test of a new multiple-warhead, ground-mobile missile, the Free Beacon has learned.

The flight test of the new JL-2 missile took place Thursday morning from a new Jin-class ballistic missile submarine on patrol in the Bohai Sea, near the coast of northeastern China west of the Korean peninsula, said U.S. officials.

A Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman declined to comment on the test.

One official said the new JL-2 represents a “potential first strike” nuclear missile in China’s growing arsenal.

The submarine missile firing followed the July 24 test launch of China’s new DF-41 road-mobile ICBM that is assessed to carry multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs.

The July 24 DF-41 test was the first of the new long-range ICBM that until the test had been shrouded in secrecy.

The DF-41 at one time was assessed to have been downgraded into a shorter-range DF-31A missile. However, two years ago the Pentagon began identifying a new, longer-range road-mobile ICBM in development that officials now say is the DF-41.

Published reports from China support internal U.S. government reports about the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) flight test.

China’s Shenzhen television reported Aug. 8 and 9 that a Jin-class missile submarine departed on a sea patrol equipped with JL-2 missiles, but made no mention of plans for a missile test...

Then, on Aug. 13, Liaoning Province Maritime Safety Administration published a “navigation warning” that military exercises would take place in the Bohai Strait on Aug. 16 and 17, and warned ships to avoid the area. Officials said the closure area was used by the submarine for the JL-2 launch.

Additionally, a Chinese military blogger posted a report Sunday stating that a JL-2 had been successfully tested. One online Chinese commentator said the missile test might have been part of China’s angry response to a new maritime dispute with Japan over the Senkaku islands near Taiwan.

However, observers said any JL-2 flight test would have required months of preparation and thus could not have been conducted in connection with the dispute over the Senkakus. Japanese nationals recently sailed to the islands to assert Tokyo’s sovereignty over the islands, prompting an angry response from Beijing.

The Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military said China has begun producing a new class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, or SSBN, called the Jin-class, or Type 094.

“The Jin-class SSBN (Type-094) will eventually carry the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile with an estimated range of some 7,400 kilometers (4,588 miles),” the report said.

The submarine and the JL-2 “will give the [People’s Liberation Army] Navy its first credible sea-based nuclear capability,” the report stated...

China currently has two Jin-class missile submarines deployed and reports from China indicate that as many as eight missile submarines eventually will be fielded.

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Editor's Note: We remember not too long ago, that we had a conversation at a social function with the head of a Chicago-based Libertarian group about China. His take: China wasn't anything to worry about. Really?!


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