China’s Likely Response to North Korea’s Nuclear Test

By Mike Chinoy

Mike Chinoy was a foreign correspondent for CNN for 24 years, serving as the network’s first Beijing bureau chief and as senior Asia correspondent. Currently a Hong Kong-based non-resident senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute, he is the author of four books and the creator of “Assignment China,” a documentary history of American correspondents in China.

North Korean President Kim Jong Un announced Wednesday the successful test of what he claimed was a hydrogen bomb outside Pyongyang, and in doing so, angered the international community, including its closest ally, China.  Mike Chinoy, Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at USC, discussed with The Cipher Brief China’s likely response to the nuclear test and why North Korea took such a provocative action.

The Cipher Brief: What are North Korea’s motives in detonating this bomb and announcing it to the public? What is the significance of this test if in fact North Korea detonated a hydrogen bomb?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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