EDITORIAL: Beijing and Moscow Tighten Their Naval Grip on the Pacific

Introduction: an understanding that no longer hides

Two navies, one message

From July 6 to 13, 2026, the Chinese and Russian navies conducted, in the Yellow Sea, the joint exercise Marine Interaction 2026, also called Joint Sea-2026, according to USNI News. This annual gathering, first launched in 2012, brought together cruisers, destroyers, a frigate and attack submarines from both countries, in the port of Qingdao and then at sea. This is no longer a one-off exercise: it is a military ritual that has become an institution.

The timing is not neutral. The first day of the exercise coincided with the launch, by a Chinese nuclear submarine, of a ballistic missile toward the Pacific, a move that alarmed Japan, Australia and New Zealand, according to Reuters. Two shows of force, one Chinese and one Sino-Russian, layered on top of each other: that is not a coincidence, it is a deliberate calendar strategy.

Layering a strategic nuclear launch and a naval exercise with Russia in the same week is not a planning mistake. It is a deliberate choice, designed to maximize the psychological impact on the Western and regional capitals watching both events at once.

What the composition of the deployed fleets reveals

On the Russian side, the exercise mobilized the cruiser Varyag, the corvette Rezkiy, the attack submarine Ufa and the rescue vessel Igor Belousov, according to USNI News. On the Chinese side, the PLAN deployed the cruiser Anshan, the destroyer Kaifeng, the frigate Wuhu, a fleet tanker and a Yuan-class attack submarine. This diversity of assets goes well beyond the scope of a mere naval courtesy exercise.

The previous edition had already marked a turning point by including, for the first time, submarines in the joint maneuvers, followed by a joint submarine patrol in the Sea of Japan. The 2026 edition therefore confirms a trajectory of deepening cooperation, not a simple annual routine renewal.

I cannot look at this buildup of Russian and Chinese warships in the Yellow Sea without seeing the clearest proof of an axis being methodically built, exercise after exercise, submarine after submarine. This is no longer circumstantial cooperation — it is an operational alliance taking root.

What the exercise's theme really means

"Joint response to maritime threats," a slogan hiding an ambition

The exercise's official theme, "Joint Response to Maritime Security Threats," according to USNI News, sounds defensive in its wording. But the operational reality goes well beyond that framing: joint reconnaissance, air and missile defense, live-fire training, submarine rescue. This is not a mere surveillance drill — it is comprehensive training for modern naval warfare.

China's Ministry of National Defense presented these maneuvers as part of the "annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, aimed at jointly responding to security challenges and maintaining regional peace and stability," according to USNI News. This formula, generous with reassuring words, poorly masks the real scale of the deployment involved.

A joint patrol extending the exercise past its official close

After the exercise ended on July 13, elements of both navies were to conduct a joint maritime patrol in the Pacific, according to USNI News and Bloomberg. This extension turns a time-limited exercise into a demonstration of continuous presence, well beyond the announced training window.

Since 2021, China and Russia have regularly conducted joint naval patrols in the western Pacific, reaching, in 2023, as far as the approaches to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. This methodical, year-after-year progression draws a map of maritime influence that keeps expanding eastward.

Calling this a "joint response to maritime threats" is a calculated euphemism. When training includes missile defense, live fire, and patrols stretching to Alaska's doorstep, call it what it is: preparation for confrontation, not a peacekeeping operation.

The Chinese launch, a nuclear showcase at the heart of the naval exercise

A missile aimed far, a range that speaks to Washington

According to The Diplomat, the missile fired on July 6 was likely the JL-3, with an estimated range beyond 10,000 kilometers, launched from a Jin-class submarine (Type 094). Such range places most of the American mainland within strike distance from zones much closer to Chinese shores than in the past.

Reuters reports that this test gave China's military leadership a chance to examine some of the most complex and sensitive operations of its evolving nuclear deterrent, including command and control of nuclear submarines operating undetected. Analyst Collin Koh, cited by Reuters, believes China is now moving closer to a genuinely operational strike capability.

A calendar that owes nothing to chance

This launch came two days after the 250th anniversary of American independence, according to The Diplomat, a timing choice that fueled interpretations about China's intent to send a symbolic signal to Washington. Combined with the same-day launch of the naval exercise with Russia, this test sketches a coordinated sequence far broader than a simple isolated technical trial.

The combination of these two events, the nuclear launch and the joint naval exercise, reinforces the notion that Beijing is seeking to demonstrate, within a single week, its entire strategic arsenal: the reach of its missiles and the solidity of its international military partnerships.

A strategic nuclear launch two days after America's national holiday, at the very moment the Russian fleet enters a Chinese port: I refuse to believe Beijing sees this as a mere scheduling coincidence. It is a message, aimed at Washington as much as at its own allies, about the solidity of its axis with Moscow.

An alliance that compensates for each other's weaknesses

What Russia brings to China

Russia, despite the attrition of its surface fleet since the start of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, retains recognized expertise in submarine rescue and anti-submarine warfare, know-how that China is actively seeking to absorb, according to the South China Morning Post. The joint submarine rescue drills built into Marine Interaction 2026 illustrate this logic of skills transfer.

This technical complementarity is no small matter given that China is rapidly expanding its nuclear submarine fleet while still lacking the real operational experience accumulated over decades by Russia and the United States in this field.

What China brings to Russia

In return, China offers Russia a valuable diplomatic and strategic showcase, at a time when Moscow remains largely isolated on the world stage due to Western sanctions tied to the war in Ukraine. Appearing as a credible military partner of the world's second-largest economy reinforces the image the Kremlin is trying to project — that of a country retaining solid alliances despite its isolation.

This transactional relationship, where each side draws a distinct but complementary benefit, explains the relative solidity of this naval partnership far better than any improbable ideological convergence between the two regimes.

This alliance must never be mistaken for friendship. Beijing and Moscow cooperate because each finds a calculated interest in the other: Russia brings aging but real military expertise, China offers a diplomatic showcase to an isolated regime. This is a marriage of convenience between two adversaries of the West, not an alliance of values.

Western reactions, between verbal firmness and operational caution

Washington watches, but does not dramatize publicly

The U.S. State Department confirmed it had tracked the Chinese launch, describing it as an unarmed intercontinental-range missile, according to The Diplomat. It voiced concerns about Beijing's "rapid and opaque" nuclear buildup, a firm formula that did not lead to any publicly disclosed immediate operational response.

This American caution is partly explained by the complexity of responding to a demonstration that, strictly speaking legally, remains consistent with international notification practices, even though the window given to neighboring countries was deemed insufficient by several of them.

Regional allies, more direct in their condemnation

By contrast, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan voiced sharper criticism. Australian Minister Penny Wong called the launch "destabilizing," while Taiwanese Minister Joseph Wu accused China of behaving like "the neighborhood bully," according to USNI News. This contrast in tone between Washington and its regional allies reveals different diplomatic margins depending on geographic proximity to the threat.

This asymmetry in tone should not be read as a substantive disagreement among allies, but rather as a natural division of roles: the most exposed countries speak louder, while the more distant power measures its words to preserve its strategic negotiating room.

I understand Washington's verbal caution, but it must never become an excuse for inaction. The most exposed allies, Tokyo, Canberra, Wellington, Taipei, are right to speak loudly: they are the ones who will live with the concrete consequences of this Sino-Russian military normalization if the West fails to match its words with equal firmness in action.

Vladimir Putin's role in this show of force

A free showcase for an isolated regime

Vladimir Putin did not need to fire a single missile to benefit from this sequence. By joining his navy with Beijing's at the exact moment China was demonstrating its undersea nuclear strength, Russia gets an almost free strategic showcase, reinforcing the image of a united Sino-Russian axis facing the Pacific's democracies.

This visible closeness particularly benefits a Russian regime diplomatically isolated since 2022, which seeks to show, to its own public as much as to its Western adversaries, that it still retains solid military partnerships despite economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

A growing dependence on Beijing

This naval partnership also reveals, in the background, Moscow's growing dependence on Beijing since the start of the war in Ukraine. Russia, once the senior partner in this military relationship, now finds itself in a position where it needs the Chinese showcase more than the reverse — a reversal of balance few analysts would have predicted a decade ago.

This new dependence does not call into question the apparent solidity of the partnership, but it reveals its asymmetric nature, with China in a growing position of strength facing a Russia weakened by years of costly war and accumulated sanctions.

This reversal of balance between Moscow and Beijing deserves to be named plainly: Putin's Russia, once the senior partner, is today the dependent junior of a China increasingly dictating the terms of the relationship. It is a sign of Russian weakness as much as a sign of growing Chinese power.

What this naval cooperation changes for Japan

Pressure added to an already long list

For Japan, this Sino-Russian naval cooperation adds to an already long list of regional security concerns: tensions around Taiwan, the defense of the Nansei Islands archipelago, and now the prospect of joint Sino-Russian patrols coming ever closer to its shores. According to Stars and Stripes, academic Junjiro Shida even points to a "cognitive warfare" dimension in these maneuvers, intended to unsettle Japanese public opinion.

This accumulation of distinct but interlinked security fronts, all tied to the same Sino-Russian strategic architecture, considerably complicates Japanese defense planning, which must now factor in a Russian element it had long been able to treat as secondary compared to the Chinese threat alone.

A national debate that is accelerating

According to The Diplomat, this growing pressure has reignited, in Japan, a debate long considered taboo: acquiring nuclear-propelled submarines armed only with conventional warheads, to more effectively track adversary submarines. The argument advanced is not nuclear in terms of weapons, but purely operational: underwater endurance.

This still-informal debate reflects a growing awareness that Sino-Russian cooperation is no longer a peripheral phenomenon but a central factor in Japanese strategic planning for the coming decades.

That Japan is seriously considering reopening a debate as sensitive as nuclear submarines speaks volumes about the scale of pressure exerted by this Sino-Russian cooperation. This is not a disproportionate reaction — it is a necessary adaptation to a threat that coordinates more each year.

Australia, between a new alliance and heightened vigilance

A pact with Fiji signed at the worst possible moment for Beijing

The Chinese launch on July 6 coincided with the signing, in Suva, of a mutual defense agreement between Australia and Fiji, according to Reuters. This coincidence reinforced the perception, widely shared among regional analysts, that the Chinese gesture was also meant to warn the Pacific's smaller nations against growing too close to Canberra.

Minister Penny Wong, then present in Suva, called the Chinese launch "destabilizing," stressing the rapid pace and lack of transparency in China's military buildup. This statement, made from the very location of the new pact's signing, took on a powerful symbolic dimension in the regional context.

A strategic reading confirmed by former officials

Quoted by the New York Times, Justin Bassi, a former Australian national security adviser, summed up the situation bluntly: China "is telling the world it has great power with which it can dominate the Pacific." He also linked this demonstration to China's growing irritation with the security partnerships built by Canberra in the region.

This reading, shared by several independent analysts, confirms that the Sino-Russian naval cooperation and the Chinese missile launch cannot be understood separately from the broader competition for influence currently playing out in the South Pacific.

Having a strategic missile launch coincide with the signing of an Australia-Fiji defense pact is nothing like a military scheduling accident. It is a diplomatic pressure maneuver disguised as a technical exercise, and it should be named as such rather than treated as a mere isolated incident.

New Zealand, guardian of a nuclear-free legacy

The living memory of the Treaty of Rarotonga

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters called the Chinese launch a "regrettable and concerning development," recalling that the South Pacific has remained, since the 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga, a symbolically nuclear-free zone. The missile, despite carrying a dummy warhead, did not technically violate the treaty, but it nonetheless reawakened a deeply rooted regional sensitivity.

"We have no interest in seeing China use the South Pacific as a testing ground for its missile capabilities," Peters said, according to Reuters. That sentence sums up the exasperation of a cluster of small island nations watching their maritime space turned into a military testing ground by distant powers.

A concern that extends beyond the Chinese case alone

This New Zealand concern is not confined to the Chinese launch alone; it logically extends to the growing naval cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, which suggests more joint demonstrations to come in a region Wellington considers its direct neighborhood and its historic diplomatic legacy.

It is this combination — an isolated Chinese launch and durable Sino-Russian naval cooperation — that worries the Pacific's small nations most, aware that they have few means to individually influence powers so asymmetric relative to their own military capabilities.

It bears repeating that the South Pacific has carried, since 1986, the rare ambition of a zone voluntarily freed from nuclear weapons. Seeing that legacy treated as an inconvenient detail by Beijing and, indirectly, by a Russia that endorses this demonstration, speaks volumes about the actual respect these two regimes hold for the Pacific's small nations.

The 2024 precedent, a milestone in gradual escalation

A shrinking circle of notification

The September 2024 launch, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile fired toward the Pacific, had already prompted similar reactions from neighboring countries, according to The Diplomat. At the time, Beijing had notified the United States, France, Australia and New Zealand — a wider circle than the one observed for the 2026 launch, limited to Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Japan.

This narrowing of the notification circle between the two launches suggests an evolution in Chinese communication doctrine, more selective, more targeted at countries deemed strategically relevant to the political message of the moment, especially those close to Australia in 2026.

A frequency that breaks with decades of rarity

Two intercontinental-range launches toward the Pacific in under two years, after decades of near-total rarity for this type of demonstration, mark an acceleration of pace, not merely a technical improvement. This acceleration coincides precisely with the deepening of Sino-Russian naval cooperation observed over the same period.

This convergence between the escalation of Chinese launches and the intensification of joint exercises with Russia can no longer be considered accidental: it traces a coherent trajectory of power demonstration, coordinated in time and across the strategic space of the Pacific.

Two intercontinental launches in under two years, layered onto Sino-Russian naval cooperation that deepens every year, is not a statistical coincidence — it is a deliberate and coordinated acceleration. Let's say it plainly: these two regimes are methodically normalizing practices they would have called provocative had they come from another country.

What this convergence demands of the Western response

Strengthening detection rather than multiplying protests

Facing this methodical and coordinated buildup, diplomatic protests, while necessary, are clearly no longer enough. Several experts cited by Reuters stress the need to strengthen undersea detection networks, aerial patrols and allied cooperation to track the real evolution of Sino-Russian capabilities, rather than limiting the response to statements of concern after every exercise.

This approach requires long-term investment that is costly and far less media-friendly than the immediate impact of a widely covered missile launch or naval exercise. It is precisely this asymmetry between the political cost of a Sino-Russian demonstration and the material cost of an adequate Western response that must be corrected as a priority.

Allied coordination still insufficiently structured

Despite the shared concern among Tokyo, Canberra, Wellington and Taipei, no formal structure yet coordinates a joint response specifically dedicated to this growing Sino-Russian naval cooperation in the Pacific. This institutional gap leaves each capital responding in isolation, with unequal resources, against two powers that are increasingly closely coordinating their military demonstrations.

Closing this gap is not just a matter of diplomatic goodwill but of urgent strategic necessity, as the Sino-Russian trajectory, confirmed exercise after exercise, shows no sign of slowing on its own.

Issuing more statements of concern without investing in coordinated undersea detection is giving ourselves the illusion of responding without ever changing the real balance of power. The West must choose between rhetorical firmness and concrete investment — it can no longer settle for the former against a Sino-Russian axis that, for its part, acts with consistency.

China, Iran and North Korea: a shared strategic horizon

A convergence that goes beyond the naval file alone

This Sino-Russian naval cooperation cannot be understood in isolation from the broader context of a rapprochement among authoritarian regimes hostile to the international order upheld by the West. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have each, in their own way, intensified their military and diplomatic exchanges in recent years, creating a cluster of converging threats rather than strictly separate files.

This strategic convergence, documented by numerous Western defense analysts, complicates the task of democracies, which must now think about their security globally rather than file by file — a paradigm shift that the Sino-Russian naval cooperation in the Yellow Sea illustrates with particular clarity.

A test of the coherence of the Western response

How Western democracies respond to this Sino-Russian naval cooperation will be an important test of their ability to address these converging threats in a coordinated way, rather than continuing to react separately to every exercise, every launch, every new show of force from Beijing or Moscow.

This test goes well beyond the Pacific: it concerns the overall credibility of the West in the face of a set of regimes that have clearly decided to coordinate their efforts rather than act in a scattered fashion.

Treating the Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean files separately is playing the game of regimes that have understood the value of coordinating their pressure. The West must stop compartmentalizing its strategic responses against an axis that, on the ground, barely recognizes borders between its files anymore.

Taiwan, the most exposed observer of this joint demonstration

A geographic proximity that changes the reading of risk

For Taiwan, the combination of a Chinese nuclear launch and a Sino-Russian naval exercise is not an abstract concern but a risk of immediate proximity. Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called the launch a "provocation that destabilizes the Indo-Pacific," according to USNI News, a phrase that reflects the anxiety of an island living under direct Chinese threat for decades.

This geographic proximity gives Taiwanese statements particular weight: Taipei is not observing this demonstration from a comfortable distance, but from a front line where every new Chinese capability translates into a concrete and immediate operational risk for its own defense.

A Sino-Russian cooperation that worries beyond the nuclear file alone

Beyond the launch itself, it is the growing naval cooperation between Beijing and Moscow that most worries Taiwanese defense planners, who fear that a more confident China in its international partnerships might also feel freer to intensify direct military pressure on the island, shielded by legitimacy reinforced by its outside alliances.

This fear, documented by several regional analysts, illustrates how deeply the files of the North Pacific and the Taiwan Strait remain intertwined, despite their often separate treatment in Western commentary on regional security.

Taiwan does not have the luxury of distance. Every Sino-Russian naval exercise, every Chinese launch, reads in Taipei as a direct signal about its own security, and the West would do well to take that reading seriously rather than treating it as just one concern among others.

South Korea and the Philippines, indirect but concerned observers

An official silence that is not indifference

Neither South Korea nor the Philippines issued a public condemnation as direct as those from Australia or Japan over the Chinese launch and the Sino-Russian exercise. This relative silence does not reflect indifference, but rather a cautious diplomatic calculation by two countries managing complex economic and security relations with Beijing.

For Manila, locked in recurring tensions with China in the South China Sea, this Sino-Russian naval demonstration adds another layer of concern to an already heavy file, even though the Philippine government chose not to comment publicly on the Yellow Sea exercise.

A shared but rarely voiced concern

According to several regional analysts, Seoul watches closely any demonstration of strengthened military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, in a context where North Korea itself benefits from growing Russian support, notably in exchange for munitions delivered for the war in Ukraine.

This North Korean backdrop makes the Sino-Russian naval cooperation all the more concerning for Seoul, which sees in this axis a three-headed threat rather than a Chinese file isolated from that of its North Korean neighbor.

Seoul and Manila's relative silence should not be mistaken for indifference. It is the caution of countries that know they live next to a giant they cannot afford to provoke head-on, yet whose concern remains full in the face of this joint show of force.

Conclusion: a cooperation redefining the Pacific's balance

A documented milestone, not a supposition

The Marine Interaction 2026 exercise, paired with the Chinese launch on July 6, is not an isolated incident that can be filed away and forgotten. It is a documented milestone in a coherent trajectory: more submarines, more range, more public demonstrations, and an increasingly visible closeness between Beijing and Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The reactions of Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan, though voiced separately, sketch a shared conclusion: Sino-Russian naval cooperation in the Indo-Pacific has entered a new phase, more visible, more openly acknowledged, and potentially more durable than previous ones.

What continued vigilance still requires

Staying alert to this trajectory is not alarmism, but a rigorous reading of facts documented by multiple, independent sources. The next exercise, the next joint patrol, will confirm or refine this reading, but the scale of the investment already committed by Beijing and Moscow leaves little doubt about the general direction taken.

This story will keep evolving, and it deserves to be followed with the same factual rigor applied here, yielding neither to minimization nor to exaggeration, but refusing to look away from a strategic reality that is now difficult to dispute.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I know and what I don't

I know that China and Russia conducted, from July 6 to 13, 2026, the joint naval exercise Marine Interaction 2026 in the Yellow Sea, according to USNI News and Bloomberg. I know that on that same July 6, a Chinese nuclear submarine fired a ballistic missile toward the Pacific, an event documented by Reuters, USNI News and The Diplomat. I know that Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan expressed concerns documented by these same sources.

I do not know with absolute certainty whether the timing of these two events was deliberately coordinated between Beijing and Moscow, as available sources describe a striking coincidence without formal proof of explicit coordination. I would rather state this clearly than assert an intent the sources themselves do not categorically confirm.

Method

This editorial draws on USNI News from July 6, 2026, Reuters from July 6 and 10, 2026, The Diplomat from July 7 and 8, 2026, the New York Times from July 7, 2026, Stars and Stripes from July 6, 2026, the South China Morning Post from July 8, 2026, and Bloomberg from July 5, 2026. No scene was invented, no firsthand testimony is claimed, and every attributed quote is reproduced faithfully from the available sources.

My editorial angle is deliberate: I consider that the growing naval cooperation between China and Vladimir Putin's Russia constitutes a coordinated strategic threat to the Indo-Pacific order upheld by Western democracies and their regional allies, without giving in to exaggeration on technical details not confirmed by primary sources.

Sources

Primary sources

China's launch and the start of Marine Interaction 2026 — USNI News, July 6, 2026

Chinese launch alarms regional powers — Reuters, July 6, 2026

What the launch reveals about China's submarine capabilities — Reuters, July 10, 2026

Secondary sources

A new phase in undersea nuclear competition — The Diplomat, July 7, 2026

China eyes Russian naval expertise in the Yellow Sea — South China Morning Post, July 8, 2026

Sino-Russian exercise challenges the U.S.-led order — Stars and Stripes, July 6, 2026