How the Chinese ‘yes’ that it will help curb North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program works:
[quote]Pyongyang revealed a mock-up of its KN-08 or Hwasong-13 ICBM during a military parade in 2012. Six of these mock-ups however, were being carried by six very real and purpose-designed 16-wheel missile transporter-erector-launchers, made by the Sanjiang Special Vehicle Corp. of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.
In order to design this launcher, Chinese engineers would have required extensive knowledge of the liquid-fueled KN-08 missile, perhaps having even aiding its development. China had an untested liquid-fueled, road-mobile ICBM design to give the North Koreans — its DF-23 project from the early 1980s. China has also sold North Korea a new precision-guided rocket artillery system, and very likely, a new fourth-generation anti-aircraft missile called KN-06, so aiding North Korea’s ICBM would have been consistent.
Since 2012 the world has watched with growing alarm as North Korea has documented its progress in developing its nuclear warhead-armed ICBM. For its Oct. 10, 2015 parade North Korea revealed its KN-14, a redesigned and longer-range ICBM judged capable of reaching Washington D.C. Then in a series of 2016 disclosures, North Korea revealed a compact nuclear weapon design compatible with the KN-08 and KN-14, tests of ablative material to assist the re-entry of nuclear warheads and possible engine tests for its ICBM.
On Sept. 9, Pyongyang tested a 20- to 30-kiloton nuclear weapon, perhaps suitable for a warhead, and some estimate it could have 100 nuclear weapons by 2020. But it is China’s launchers, perhaps up to eight of them, according to Japanese reports, which will give North Korea’s ICBMs the mobility they need to conduct surprise nuclear strikes against the United States and then to evade U.S. counter-attack. . . .
In June 2012, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, citing an anonymous Japanese “government” source, reported that on Aug. 1 2011, the “spy satellites of Japan, the United States and South Korea” observed a Cambodian ship transporting four of the Chinese missile launchers from Shanghai to the North Korean port of Nampo. But despite this early knowledge, the Asahi report stated, “On the urging of the United States, the three governments also decided not to publicize the shipment of the vehicles to avoid publicly embarrassing China.”[/quote]