China’s decision to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean is “concerning” the foreign affairs minister and a foreign policy expert says.<\/p>\n
It is the first time China has launched a missile into the Pacific Ocean in the past 44 years.<\/p>\n
China launched the missile, carrying a dummy warhead, yesterday afternoon New Zealand time and at 8.44 am Beijing time.<\/p>\n
The Chinese defence ministry said in a statement the missile was part of a “routine arrangement in our annual training plan”, and that it was not directed at any country or target.<\/p>\n
The missile “fell into expected sea areas”, the statement said.<\/p>\n
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said the missile launch was an unwelcome “and concerning development”.<\/p>\n
“We remain in the process of gathering further information,” Peters said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“However, as reported, China has conducted a long-range ballistic missile test terminating in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n
“Pacific Leaders have clearly articulated their expectation that we have a peaceful, stable, prosperous, and secure region. As part of the region, New Zealand strongly supports that expectation.”<\/p>\n
Peters said he had engaged with Pacific partners over the missile launch, and will continue to in the coming days.<\/p>\n
A Japan Coast Guard official said it received a navigation warning from China on Monday for “space debris” in three zones in the South China Sea and the Pacific north of the Philippines’ Luzon island in the South Pacific on Wednesday, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Otago, Nicholas Khoo, said the launch was disturbing for New Zealand, and jeopardised stability in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China’s decision to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean is “concerning” the foreign affairs minister and a foreign policy expert says. It is the first time China has launched a missile into the Pacific Ocean in the past 44 years. China launched the missile, carrying a dummy warhead, yesterday afternoon New Zealand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11550,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548\/revisions\/11550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}