At 12.01pm on Monday, a People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine test fired a ballistic missile into the South Pacific nuclear-free zone. This is the second time China has conducted a ballistic missile test in the Pacific in two years.Coming on the day Fiji became Australia’s fourth formal treaty ally, after the US, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, this test’s timing is interesting. It reads as a provocation at best, outright coercion at worst.It is not likely this was a spur-of-the-moment test. Even for a military whose sophistication has grown immensely over the past decades, and will continue to do so, these things take time. That said, it is possible the signing of the Ocean of Peace Alliance pact caused it to move the test up the timetable.Washington, of course, looms large in Beijing’s thinking, and will be taking note. But what does it mean for Australia and its regional partners?China has followed the letter of the law in informing regional countries, including Australia and New Zealand, that such a test was going to take place, but hardly its spirit. Transparency about weapons testing should try to build trust, or at least alleviate suspicion, but when information about a test comes only hours earlier this does neither. The Chinese foreign ministry might ask regional countries not to “overinterpret” this test but the lack of any meaningful notification renders this request hollow. How does demonstrating that a nuclear-armed missile can strike targets thousands of kilometres away illustrate Beijing’s commitment to “a path of peaceful development”?To quote China’s ambassador to Australia: “Rumours cease when people are truly well-informed, and facts speak louder than words.”So what are these facts?First, the type of missile tested was reportedly one of China’s new JL-3 SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles). These can be armed with multiple warheads, each of which can carry a nuclear payload and strike different targets.Second, this missile has a range of about 10,000km. This means it is possible it was fired from a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine operating in the South China Sea.Third, China operates six of these submarines. Its expansive Bohai shipyards can probably build as many as six a year. And images from Shanghai indicate that a second shipyard has begun constructing nuclear-powered submarines.Taken with a Chinese naval task group’s circumnavigation of Australia last year – which included live-fire exercises – and its harassment of Australian patrol aircraft, helicopters and naval personnel, this all points towards China’s increasing willingness to use military force to coerce states across the Indo-Pacific to adopt policies preferable to Beijing. The People’s Republic would like Australia to stop conducting legal passage operations in international waters so it can shore up its claims in the South China Sea, therefore it harasses the personnel conducting those operations.Since Mao Zedong’s time, China has tasked the PLA with carrying out weishe – roughly translating as coercion. In the Xi Jinping era, weishe has become more expansive, aimed at preserving Beijing’s “period of strategic opportunities” and actively shaping the region. This test is the latest evidence that China will resort to more overt shows of force as part of this strategy.Whether or not this test was timed to coincide with the Ocean of Peace Alliance, it is an action hardly in line with principles of “mutual respect, equal treatment, mutual benefit and win-win outcomes, openness and inclusiveness”.Pacific nations, including Australia, have voiced their commitment to the Pacific as an ocean of peace. One wonders if China prefers pieces of shrapnel in the ocean.