Photo A. The KN-11 SLBM pictured above. 1 minute 35 seconds in Bechtol's claims are mentioned. But there is strong evidence that North Korea also used the Russian R-27 "SS-N-6 "Serb" SLBM design to develop the KN-11.
---
On 3 September 2016, a US North Korea expert, Bruce Bechtol, claimed (see Youtube above) that China must have provided North Korea with the relevant SLBM technologies to develop its increasingly dangerous KN-11. Bechtol claims the KN-11 is a carbon-copy of the first China's SLBM, JL-1 (developed 1967 to deployment 1986). But the KN-11 is equally similar to the Soviet/Russian R-27 SS-N-6 "Serb" (see gray Photo B. below). The R-27 was developed from 1962 to deployment in 1968, much earlier than the JL-1.
Bechtol claims this allowed North Korea to move from first successful Cold launch of the KN-11 (on 23 April 2016) to a first complete test (24 August 2016). But he does not provide details on how many years NK has already been developing the KN-11, which seems to go back to 2004 (see Table A. below).
The following are relevant excerpts from a much longer report of September 20, 2004 by Richard Fisher Jr http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.3/pub_detail.asp . It indicates that North Korea has not been developing the KN-11 for just a few years, and with only Chinese help. Rather North Korea has had extensive help to develop an SLBM, since at least 2004 using the Russian R-27 design….[see redded portions]
...In early September 2003 the first news leaks from South Korea and the United States told of a new North Korean ballistic missile that was to appear in a military parade marking North Korea’s 55th Anniversary….it was Beijing that cautioned Pyongyang against any provocative display.
U.S. sources were reported to have concluded, based on its size and the distinctive baby-bottle shape of its nose, that the new missile was based on the Soviet-era Makeyev R-27, NATO code named SS-N-6, a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). …
"…North Korea is also developing“submarine or ship mounted” versions of the R-27."
[BTW] "In 1993 Japan’s Toen Trading Company arranged for twelve ex-Soviet Foxtrot-class conventional attack submarines and Golf II-class conventionally powered ballistic missile submarines to be scrapped in North Korea.”