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The JL-2, China's second-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile, is set to enter service. China may develop its next generation with a range of at least 12,000 km in order to reach North America from the South China Sea, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.

The PLA Navy's nuclear-powered Type 094 submarine was spotted patrolling with the missile, which has a range of around 8,000 km and can carry multiple warheads, at the beginning of this year. The Chinese military ended its decade-long research, development and trials for the missile at the end of 2012 and has been preparing to introduce it to its arsenal. State broadcaster CCTV recently aired a documentary on the missile's development process with video clips of its firing tests.

Photos posted by military enthusiasts show three Type 094 submarines, capable of launching the JL-2, in Sanya, Hainan province. A fourth of the class of submarine is said to be under construction.

The missile's range still falls short of China's ideal target range however since the Type 094 submarines need a missile with a range over 12,000 km to strike North America from South China Sea. The Trident missiles that US Navy launched from submarines in June this year have a maximum range of 11,000 km and can carry 11 warheads.

The People's Liberation Army Navy's Type 094 Jin-class nuclear-powered submarines may conduct their first strategic patrol mission by the end of this year, David Tweed, a Bloomberg reporter from Hong Kong reports.

In his article, Tweed explained that the Jin-class submarines allow China to have greater capability in responding to a nuclear attack, 50 years after the nation's first nuclear test. With those new strategic submarines in hand, Xi Jinping hopes to end what he calls the "cold war" mentality which allows the US to dominate Asia-Pacific security. To prevent China from being destroyed by a nuclear first strike, Chinese top brass focused on the development of longer-range ballistic missiles.

Nicolas Giacometti, an analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that it is indeed the first time in history that China's nuclear arsenal will be invulnerable to a first strike. This is the last leap toward China's assured nuclear-retaliation capability, he told Tweed. Felix Chang from the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia said that China's nuclear-defense strategy is engineered to provide retaliation capability in the event of an attack from nuclear powers.

China's only ballistic missile with enough range to hit the continental US before 2006 was the liquid-fueled, silo-based DF-5A, Tweed said. They are considered vulnerable because fueling takes a few hours during which the missile must remain in its silo. Not having the right means to defend them from a US attack, China built mock silos and adopted a policy of secrecy that made a disarming first strike harder to execute.

This all changed in 2006. China then introduced the land-based mobile DF-31A ballistic missile. It has a range of 6,959 miles. The missiles are solid-fueled, so they can be fired almost immediately if the warheads are pre-fitted, according to Giacometti. As for the Jin-class subs, each can carry 12 JL-2 missiles with a range of 4,598 miles. When fired from the waters east of Hawaii, the JL-2 can reach all targets in the continental US.

Malcolm Davis from the Bond University in Australia said that it will still pose a massive challenge for Jin-class submarines to fire their missiles from Hawaii while facing the US' anti-submarine capabilities. Still, the Type 094 submarine is harder to be found than the other Chinese submarines because it can stay beneath the waters for a longer period of time. Tweed said that the PLA Navy currently has three Jin-class submarines. It is likely to have two more by 2020.