North Korea’s Suspected Missile Tech Deals with China: Academic Exchange or Security Breach?
Daniel Kim Views
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According to a report by the Japanese newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), on the 11th, North Korea appears to be openly importing missile technology, primarily through academic exchanges supported by the Chinese government.
Nikkei reported that after analyzing the joint research between North Korea and overseas researchers, it was revealed that Chinese researchers participated in 94 out of at least 110 papers suspected of violating UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea, which is 85%.
In particular, Nikkei pointed out that 60% of the articles, or 67 articles out of the total, were funded by the Chinese government, indicating that the Chinese government is effectively supporting North Korea’s advanced weapons technology development in many ways.
Nikkei Highlights Potential Import of North Korean Ballistic Missile Technology Through Academic Exchange Supported by the Chinese Government
Nikkei explained that despite the UN Security Council sanctions and other countries’ control over technology transfer, North Korea has not slowed down its weapons development speed, testing over 80 ballistic missiles and others since 2022. This raised questions about whether North Korea is acquiring military technology through joint research with overseas researchers, and the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea’s panel of experts has been monitoring the cooperation between North Korean and Chinese researchers for several years.
Nikkei said regarding North Korea’s overseas collaborative research, which is suspected of evading sanctions, they extracted collaborative research papers by researchers of North Korea and other countries from about 90 million literature data on the international academic article database platform “Scopus” and analyzed them with the cooperation of nine experts in each technical field in Japan.
Since the UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea were strengthened in 2016 regarding research cooperation, 657 papers were co-authored by researchers affiliated with North Korean research institutions and researchers from other countries.
Among these co-authored papers, excluding purely theoretical research, at least 110 were deeply relevant to the UN-sanctioned areas, with specific military applications envisioned.
Out of 110, 94 papers, or 85%, were participated by authors affiliated with Chinese research institutions, and there were cases where Japanese researchers were co-authors.
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Of the 110 Papers Suspected of Violating UN Sanctions Against North Korea, 67 Received Funding from the Chinese Government
In particular, 67 papers, or 60%, were funded by the Chinese government, and 88 papers, or 80%, were participated by researchers with experience affiliated with research institutions similar to the People’s Liberation Army. Nikkei pointed out that there is a concern that the results of these papers could be used for military purposes.
Nikkei analyzed that if lines connect the co-authored papers of North Korean and Chinese researchers, clusters appear in the concentrated research areas. The areas where many papers participated by researchers related to the People’s Liberation Army are concentrated have a high possibility of military application.
Nikkei reported that among the 110 papers, 62% were related to aerospace technology, and 38% were related to advanced structural technology. If analyzed by technology field, 48% were “high-performance material” related papers that can be applied to missile part development, 22% were “structural reinforcement” related documents that can be dedicated to missile body development, and 19% were “machine” related papers that can be used for missile engine and part development.
Professor Toshio Nagashima of Sophia University explained the “structural reinforcement” technology with vibration control and structural analysis as “a universal technology that can be applied to missiles and rockets to maintain strength so as not to disintegrate during flight.”
Researchers related to the People’s Liberation Army participated in “high-performance material” related field papers such as alloy development and laser processing. Professor Tetsuya Suzuki of Keio University evaluated that if the function of the alloy is enhanced, it can be used in extreme environments such as space and high-speed flight.
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Two Chinese Professors Involved in Joint Research with North Korea Co-Author at Least 28 Papers on Ballistic Missile-Specific Technologies
In the expert panel report in September 2021 summarizing the implementation of sanctions against North Korea, the UN posted papers suspected of violating sanctions over four pages, all related to researchers affiliated with Chinese research institutions.
Maiko Takeuchi, a researcher at the Japan Institute of Economy and Industry who worked as a member of the expert panel, said that the names of the researchers were covered in black because there was no agreement among the experts. Still, Nikkei revealed that two professors, Wang Qingshan of Zhongnan University in Hunan Province, China, and Wang Zhenqing of Harbin Engineering University in Heilongjiang Province, China, were identified based on the analysis of paper titles and others.
Many of the research topics of the papers conducted by Professor Wang Qingshan were “composite” and “vibration analysis,” etc., which had in mind the development of durable materials and parts, and especially in the paper content, pictures of shapes similar to missile parts appear consecutively, and durability verification of objects of shapes identical to missile parts is being repeated, Nikkei reported.
In response, Takeji Tsuchiya, a professor at the University of Tokyo and an expert in aerospace engineering, analyzed that it is “technology that can also be dedicated to ballistic missiles.”
There were at least 19 papers co-authored with North Korean researchers on similar topics by Professor Wang Qingshan, which could be confirmed.
Professor Wang Zhenqing co-authored nine papers suspected of violating sanctions with the North Korean research team on topics that could also be used for missile structure reinforcement.
Harbin Engineering University is one of China’s seven military universities, which inherited the Military Engineering Institute of the People’s Liberation Army (Hagoon Gong), established in 1953, and changed its name in 1994. It has been a sanction target listed on the trade restriction list (entity list) of the U.S. Department of Commerce since 2020.
President Xi Jinping encouraged the university during his visit on September 7 last year, saying, “We must uphold the good traditions of Hagoon Gong and actively support the requirements of a strong country and a strong army.”
Nikkei reported that Professor Wang has written many papers with serious content, with many missile-shaped and missile-shaped diagrams in China, in addition to joint research with North Korea.
Professor Wang has conducted research that can be seen for military use, such as “the projectile penetrating reinforced concrete,” “the shock analysis due to underwater explosion,” and “runway attack simulation by missiles,” with researchers from research institutions affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. He also wrote papers on hypersonic aircraft, which included confidential information and were restricted from being viewed in the Chinese paper database.
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Suspected Leakage of Chinese Classified Information to North Korea Continues After 2016 UN Security Council Sanctions
Nikkei pointed out that North Korea and China have been conducting joint research on the military since before the UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea were strengthened in 2016 after North Korea’s nuclear test and long-range missile test. Even after the strengthened sanctions, there is a strong suspicion that confidential information continues to leak from China to North Korea through the personal relationships of researchers.
The UN Security Council resolution against North Korea prohibits scientific and technical cooperation officially sponsored by North Korea or involving individuals or entities representing North Korea, and governments responsible for implementing sanctions, including China, regulate international joint research that must be related to technology transfer by export control laws and others.
However, judging whether basic research with high versatility is directly linked to military technology is complicated. Katsu Hisa Furukawa, a former member of the expert panel, pointed out that “there are loopholes in the stage of reflecting (UN resolution) in domestic law, so technology leakage is happening under the name of basic research.”
The fact that many technologies have “dual-use,” meaning that they can be diverted for military purposes, also gives North Korea and its allies room to excuse it by claiming that they are “civilian technologies.”
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