China’s Fingerprints Are All Over North Korea’s Missiles

Not long before the United Nations went limp in the face of North Korea’s missile launch, our own high priest of Smart Diplomacy called on our friends the ChiComs to do their part to restore the rule of law we know them to treasure as we do:

“China could do a great deal more,” [Vice President Joe] Biden said, without elaborating. [AFP]

On the contrary, according to this report, it appears that China has done quite enough:

The rocket launched by North Korea last Sunday was made using the technology of the Long March-1 rocket China fired in the 1970s. [….]

After looking at video footage of the rocket launch released by AP on Tuesday, Chae Yeon-seok, a former president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said, the external appearance of the rocket shows that the North must have used technology of the Chinese rocket to make it.

The assembly method also seems to be Chinese. “The North set the first-stage booster rocket up vertically first, and then put the second and third-stage rockets on one by one. This assembly method is often used in China and backs up speculation that North Korea has borrowed the technology,” Dr. Roh Woong-rae of KARI said. “You could see gas gushing out from the upper part of the first-stage booster rocket immediately after the rocket was launched, which is a characteristic of a rocket that uses liquid nitric acid as fuel.” He added this corroborates a long-held speculation. [Chosun Ilbo]

That’s one guy’s opinion, but on the other hand, he’s a rocket scientist (or an aerospace engineer, anyway) and I’m not.

If confirmed, the report would be consistent with numerous reports of Chinese and North Korean cooperation and co-proliferation — chiefly, to Iran — regarding missile technology. China has a long history of supplying WMD technology to North Korea, and a number of Chinese companies have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department as a result. Way back in 1999, the final report of the North Korea Advisory Group traced the Chinese origin of North Korea’s missile programs:

North Korea’s ballistic missile program dates back to the early 1970s when it tried to procure SCUD missiles from the Soviet Union. When this effort failed, North Korea began reverse engineering the USSR’s FROG rockets and, in the mid-1970s, began a program of missile cooperation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The two countries worked on the development of the DF-61 missile which would have had an estimated range of 600 km (370 miles) and a payload of 1,000 kg (2,200 pounds).(45) Although the DF-61 program was canceled due to the removal of its supporters in the Chinese regime, it provided North Korea with certain ballistic missile technology and served as a basis for its missile development. [….]

It is not known where North Korea acquired the solid fuel third stage for the August 1998 test, but there are several possibilities. David Wright of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said the solid fuel motor could have been acquired from Pakistan, which may have copied it from a French missile motor, or North Korea may have used, or copied, one stage of the Chinese M-11 short-range ballistic missile. Pakistan reportedly received M-11 missiles, components, and production technology from China. Iran received solid missile technology from Russia, and perhaps China, and may have passed it to North Korea in return for SCUD and No Dong missiles and technology. Another possibility is that North Korea might have modified a motor from an SA-2 surface-to-air missile, which North Korea reportedly produces as the HJ-2, or may have used an engine from an SS-21 SCARAB, which North Korea reportedly acquired for reverse engineering.(57) [North Korea Advisory Group, Final Report]

Was all of this assistance inadvertent? Several years ago, proliferation expert and former head of the Illicit Activities Initiative David Asher said this:

China has long served as a safe harbor for North Korean proliferation and illicit trading networks and a transport hub for these networks via its airports and airspace, harbors and sea space. Moreover, in the past decade there have been way too many incidents of Chinese companies actively fronting for North Korea in the procurement of key technologies for the DPRK’s nuclear program. Some of these incidents suggest lax enforcement of export controls, poor border controls, and a head-in-the-sand attitude of senior authorities. Others suggest active collusion and/or deliberately weak enforcement of international laws and agreements against WMD and missile proliferation. There is a great body of information about this and the Chi ­nese are well aware of our grave concerns. [David Asher, Remarks at the Heritage Foundation, Sept. 14, 2006]

If North Korean missiles bear a striking resemblance to China’s, it’s probably a matter of the apple not falling far from the tree. This would certainly place China’s U.N. obstructionism in context, wouldn’t it?