The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force launched on Wednesday morning an intercontinental ballistic missile into open waters in the Pacific Ocean, marking a major display of its strategic deterrence prowess.

The PLA Rocket Force announced in a brief news release that the missile, carrying dummy warheads, lifted off at 8:44 am and then hit a designated area in the waters. It did not give more details about the operation, such as the missile's type and the location where the missile was launched.

The news release said the missile test was part of the PLA Rocket Force's annual training plan and was intended to examine the weapon's capability and performance as well as the training level of the troops. The test had achieved its goals, it added.

China notified relevant nations about the test in advance, according to the PLA Rocket Force.

Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday that the test "is in line with international law and international practice, and is not directed against any country or target".

This is the first time in more than four decades that China made public its flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The last time the nation made such a flight test public was in May 1980, when the baseline model of the DF-5 was fired from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China and hit a preset area in the South Pacific after flying more than 9,000 kilometers. That was the first time a DF-5 missile carried out a full-range flight test.

Song Zhongping, a military affairs commentator and retired PLA Rocket Force officer, said a full-range flight test is a necessary and important step in verifying the capability and performance of any new type of strategic missile.

"Though China's intercontinental ballistic missiles have good reliability and strong power, we need a certain number of full-range tests to check their operational readiness," he said.

According to information published previously by the Chinese military, the PLA Rocket Force now has multiple types of ballistic missiles with intercontinental ranges, including the DF-31AG, the DF-5B and the DF-41.

The latest and mightiest in the Rocket Force's arsenal — the DF-41-has widely been considered by observers as one of the most advanced and lethal weapons on the planet.

Only three countries — the United States, Russia and China — possess such destructive hardware, which serves as the ultimate deterrent in war. The DF-41's counterparts are the US' LGM-30G Minuteman III and Russia's RS-24 Yars.

The road-mobile, solid-propellant DF-41, which is carried by a 16-wheel gigantic launch vehicle, was declassified and unveiled at the National Day parade in October 2019.

In addition, the PLA Navy has the JL-2 submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile.