Is China playing a double game with North Korea, publicly deploring the North’s nuclear weapons program but secretly helping them build it?

A U.S.-based think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), had said in a report last month that North Korea had used China either directly or indirectly, as a transshipment point, to procure items for enrichment.

“Most believe that China views North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme as destabilizing to the region,” the report said. “Nonetheless, China is not applying enough resources to detect and stop North Korea’s illicit nuclear trade.”

ISIS stressed there was no evidence that Beijing was “secretly approving or willfully ignoring exports” to its neighbour to strengthen the North’s nuclear weapons programme.

Mark Fitzpatrick, proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said he believed Chinese private firms and individuals, rather than state authorities, may have assisted Pyongyang.