As the reclusive state prepares another imminent missile launch, a professor with the Chinese Communist Party has warned that there is a 70-80% chance of war with North Korea.

“There is a 70 to 80 per cent chance that a war will happen because North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may want to use this opportunity to force a reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” Zhang Liangui, a professor of international strategic research at the Communist Party’s Central Party School, told the South China Morning Post.

“The longer we delay fixing it, the more difficult the situation will become,” he added. “China needs to seriously consider how to tackle the problem.”

Liangui’s comments arrive in the aftermath of speculation that China is becoming increasingly exacerbated with its belligerent ally and is looking to shift away from the Hermit kingdom. In February, a deputy editor of a newspaper affiliated with the Central Party School was suspended for writing a Financial Times piece in which he urged China to abandon North Korea.

Observers are expecting another North Korean missile launch within days as reports emerge that rockets have been move into the firing position. South Korea has said that its missile defense system will intercept the rockets if they are aimed at South Korean territory.