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John J. Tkacik, Jr., Senior Research Fellow in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, writes, “The new and mature tenor of China’s diplomatic rhetoric may signal a real change in Beijing’s policies on North Korea – or it may reflect a Chinese tactic of ‘soft on the outside’ but ‘hard on the inside’ when engaging Washington. How receptive Beijing is to the U.S. call for enforceable sanctions on North Korea will reveal how serious China really is about being a responsible stakeholder.”

Jungmin Kang, Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director, write, “Having tested and failed, the DPRK can no longer rely on opacity as the basis for having a credible nuclear force, at least sufficiently credible to threaten its adversaries with a nuclear explosion. The DPRK might believe that a half kilotonne “mininuke” still provides it with a measure of nuclear deterrence and compellence; but it could not rely on other nuclear weapons states to perceive it to have anything more than an unusable, unreliable and relatively small nuclear explosive device.”

Jungmin Kang, Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director, write, “Having tested and failed, the DPRK can no longer rely on opacity as the basis for having a credible nuclear force, at least sufficiently credible to threaten its adversaries with a nuclear explosion. The DPRK might believe that a half kilotonne “mininuke” still provides it with a measure of nuclear deterrence and compellence; but it could not rely on other nuclear weapons states to perceive it to have anything more than an unusable, unreliable and relatively small nuclear explosive device.”