China's recent submarine-launched strategic missile test was a routine annual training exercise by the Chinese military that achieved its intended objectives and that was not directed at any specific country or target, a Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman said on Tuesday.
In response to media queries, Senior Colonel Chen Xi, the spokesman, said in a statement that the test was conducted in accordance with international law and customary practices, and that China had notified the relevant countries in advance, demonstrating openness and transparency.
The spokesman stressed that China adheres to the path of peaceful development, follows a defensive national defense policy, upholds a self-defensive nuclear strategy and maintains its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required for national security.
China does not engage in a nuclear arms race with any country, and its efforts to modernize its nuclear forces are aimed at safeguarding national security and maintaining global strategic stability, Chen said.
According to the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy, a strategic nuclear submarine of the navy successfully launched a strategic missile carrying a dummy warhead toward the relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean at 12:01 Beijing time (0401 GMT) on Monday, which landed precisely within the designated waters.
China's missile test launch routine military training: spokesman
Singaporean scholar Lim Shao Bin, who has been studying World War II history and the Japanese army's wartime atrocities, has shed light on Japan's extensive network of bacterial experiments in Southeast Asia -- alongside its germ-warfare crimes in China -- through his research.
In 2025, Lim published a collection of historical records compiled by Singaporean and Chinese scholars, "Oka 9420 Unit, Japanese South Army BW Troops", bringing together nearly a decade of archival digging, exposing Japan's wartime inhumane atrocity to the public.
Lim's interest in Japanese germ warfare was sparked by Nobuyoshi Takashima, an honorary professor at Japan's University of the Ryukyus. In Feb 2016, Takashima took Lim to the outskirts of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, and pointed out a building that had been used for Japanese army's experiments involving plague bacteria.
"Professor Takashima took me to the site and pointed out to me that this building was the factory where Japanese Army Unit 731 produced those plague bacteria bombs. I was really shocked. I never imagined that Unit 731 would be so close to my doorstep. After that, I started my research trying to find out what Unit 731 was doing in Singapore and across Southeast Asia," Lim said.
To facilitate its aggression in the Pacific theater, the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II began deploying a biowarfare troops unit in Southeast Asia in March 1942, similar to the notorious Unit 731 in northeastern China's Harbin.
In May, a biowarfare unit was formed in Nanjing, China, and was dispatched to Singapore a month later. The detachment, publicly known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, was referred to as the Oka 9420 Unit within the Japanese Imperial Army, according to historical records.
"On March 30, 1942, a military order was issued, and all troops began preparations to establish the Oka 9420 accordingly," Lim said.
Through his research, Lim found out why the Japanese army needed to build Oka 9420 in Southeast Asia despite already operating Unit 731 in China.
"Around Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, temperatures stay at about 30 degrees Celsius year-round, with humidity reaching 80 to 90 percent. For the bacteria cultivators in Harbin, Singapore and Malaysia were almost like paradise: they didn't have to spend much money, and fleas could survive simply by being placed on the ground. That's why the Japanese army decided to move their cultivation base to Singapore and Malaysia," Lim said.
The Singapore-based biowarfare unit crept into what are today Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. Records show one of its central missions was raising rats and cultivating plague-infected fleas.
"Their goal was to cultivate large quantities of plague bacteria in preparation for bombing the U.S. West Coast. The Japanese army was cultivating the equivalent of about five tons of fleas, and Singapore was one of the important plague cultivation centers," Lim said.
The Japanese army established mass production lines for plague fleas in Singapore and Malaysia, and then transported those fleas to Bangkok, sealed in glass bottles, according to witnesses. Based on that evidence, Lim deduced that these flea bombs were likely intended for use in the China-Burma-India Theater.
"The fleas sealed inside the glass bottles have a lifespan of only 20 to 30 days, so the bombs must be dropped quickly before the fleas die. I suspect their goal was to disrupt the Yunnan-Burma Road, cutting off supplies donated by overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia from reaching China," Lim said.
The unit destroyed a large amount of equipment and materials after Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945, and many members hid their identities, according to Lim.
Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing in China during World War II.
Singaporean scholar's study exposes Japan's bacterial experiment network in Southeast Asia
