North Korea has been in the news again, and it is never good news. At talks with the US and China in Beijing in April, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, its official name) is said to have confirmed what had long been suspected: that it already possesses some nuclear weapons. Before long it will probably have more, by either or both of two routes: a plutonium facility shut down in 1994 but restarted earlier this year; or a newer secret highly enriched uranium programme, aided by Pakistan, the US detection of which triggered the current crisis.
Having quit the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in January-the first of its 188 signatory states ever to do so-and expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, the world’s last surviving Stalinist regime is effectively out of control. Its stance at the Beijing talks in April angered China, which was once a close ally of the “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung (whom Mao saved in the 1950-53 Korean war). China is still a crucial supplier of life-support aid to Kim’s son and heir, the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il, in charge since 1994 when Kim Il-sung died aged 82.
Antagonising your main donor is not smart. But then little that this bankrupt yet belligerent regime does makes sense. In May, the vice-foreign minister, Choe Su-hon, in London for the opening of North Korea’s first embassy-located in suburban Ealing, as downtown is beyond their means-reproached EU states for short-sightedness in not accepting thousands of North Korean students. This suggests a poor grasp of western politics or budgets-as ever, there was no hint that Pyongyang would do anything so vulgar as pay.
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