China has fielded new, longer-range ballistic missiles on its six nuclear-powered submarines, allowing it to hit the continental US from much closer to its own shores, the US acknowledged publicly for the first time Friday.
China’s six Jin-class submarines are now “equipped with JL-3 intercontinental ballistic missiles,” Admiral Sam Paparo, the head of the US Pacific Fleet, told military reporters at a conference in Washington. “They were built to threaten the United States.”