COLD WAR II: China Says It Test-Fired Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

Drew Thompson, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote on X that the timing of China’s launch appeared to be motivated at least in part by geopolitical frictions with Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

“Timing is everything,” wrote Thompson, a former Pentagon official, who said separately that he believed it was Beijing’s first public acknowledgment of an ICBM test launch since 1982. “This launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone.”

China is developing its nuclear arsenal, including expanding its stockpile of warheads, the Pentagon has said.

One likely motivation in that buildup is to limit the U.S.’s ability to intervene in any conflict over Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that China claims as its own. China’s leaders have seen U.S. wariness over direct involvement in Ukraine as a validation of the need for a powerful nuclear force, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Previously: Don’t Look Now, But There’s a Nuclear Nightmare A-Brewing. “China is engaging in what the Pentagon calls a ‘strategic breakout.’ Over the last few months, it’s been revealed that Beijing is constructing silos for an additional 230 nuclear-tipped ICBMs.”