While the world’s attention is on Iran, China has been making its moves — buying ample time to extend its dominance in the South Pacific. The timing is not an accident. Recently, on July 6, China launched a submarine-based ballistic missile with a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean during a “test” run. The test marks only a two-year gap since China’s last such launch, in 2024 — which itself came after a 44-year pause dating back to 1980, when Beijing conducted its first ballistic missile test into the Pacific. That compression, from a 44-year gap to a two-year one, is itself a signal of how quickly China’s willingness to display this capability is accelerating. The test also landed on the same day Australia and Fiji signed a mutual defense pact, the Ocean of Peace Alliance — an agreement that, through Australia’s existing treaty relationships, indirectly involves the United States as well. The launch is concerning not just on its own terms but as a marker of an increasingly assertive Chinese military posture, one that has grown alongside a roughly 500% rise in distinct China Coast Guard vessels operating in waters near Taiwan between January 2020 and December 2025. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has separately flagged growing Chinese activity not only in the wider Pacific but also inside Australia’s own exclusive economic zone.