spouse of scouse

From China's State run English language Global Times News (unable to copy and paste direct quote, GTN Twitter link here https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews)

The security of China's northeast regions is a priority. We need to make clear to Pyongyang through various channels that its nuclear tests can never contaminate China's northeastern provinces. China's strategic security and environmental safety is the bottom line for China in showing restraint. If North Korea crosses this line, the current framework for Sino-North Korean ties will break down.

uk_grenada

Live kiloton nuclear test yesterday, speculation that this is the warhead they can put in their US range missile. Glad i'm not in America, they are mad enough to do it...

GarryP

Their problem then is that this test seems to have resulted in a large collapse (creating a 4.1 quake of it's own). If that breached containment on the explosion chamber, then radionuclides will get carried on the wind (which is currently blowing towards china).

Shard

Do we know he's not a suicidal maniac? Everything that he is reported to have done points to him being unhinged. Individuals with intense grandiosity often believe themselves to be infallible, and whether he is afflicted or not, he has an entire state reinforcing his delusions. I don't think we can simply assume sanity and logic.

BritInParis

Quite the opposite. Everything that he has done is entirely rational. His only priority is the maintaining of the current regime. Saddam Hussein gave up his WMDs, Iraq was invaded anyway and he was ended up on the end of a rope. Gaddafi came in from the cold, gave up his WMDs and ended up dead in a gutter. He knows a nuclear arsenal, particularly one that has the a capability of striking the confidential United States, is the only guarantee he has to prevent a similar fate befalling him.

Shard

There's a rationality in building up a nuclear arsenal if you are under threat, but that wasn't initially the case. Considering that Kim was educated in the West, and young when he gained power he had every opportunity to take NK on a different more open path. China has been opening, SK is an economic power house, a rational young leader would see opportunity in that. Instead he has gone full tile the other direction. He is accused of executing his family members in the most cruel fashion, seems paranoid beyond belief, and now is courting nuclear disaster by high risk missile testing. We look back at Hitler and Stalin and recognise the mental issues, we can do the same with Kim.

BritInParis

No-one would argue that he and the regime are not cruel and despotic, far from it, but that doesn't mean it's actions are not rational when placed in context. The DPRK has been on a war footing since 1950. There has never been a peace settlement on the Korean peninsula, only an armistice. Since its inception the RoK has had the backing of the world's most powerful military. Even now there are 28,500 US troops in the RoK and another 50,000 in Japan. When the Soviet Union collapsed the DPRK lost its biggest backer and it is now merely tolerated by China as a buffer zone between themselves and a US-supported RoK. If the DPRK regime was to lose control then Kim and his top circle know that they would be no place for them to hide. He is also somewhat understandably paranoid that he himself could be replaced by one of his siblings in the same way that he replaced others in the order of succession prior to Kim Jong-il's death. Economically there has been some loosening of restrictions and small steps made away from the command economy since Kim Jong-un but any moves in that direction come a distant second to maintaining an iron grip on power.

Shard

That may be so, but why did Kim not seek to de-escalate tensions and reform NK? His presumption was very much the Cold War of the 1950s, well before his time, was ongoing despite the fact that by the 1990s his erstwhile enemies had changed beyond recognition. It points to delusion. I don't think parallels can be drawn with Middle Eastern despots who are literally in a perpetual war zone and in any case hampered by religious power and a religious populace. The fact that Kim squandered an opportunity for reform suggests a psychopathic attachment to power, beyond rationality.

scrubbedexpat098

Kim despises the British above all, so naturally he'll be nuking Perth. He's the cartoon bad guy that the West needs at the moment, just a sabre rattling douche bag that the world can virtue signal against.

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was all staged and Kim is no worse than any other world leader.

BritInParis

Why take the risk when the status quo have kept his family in power for over 70 years? His actions maybe psychopathic but they are still rational.

Beoz

Right on cue. And another.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/kim-jongun-crossed-chinas-red-line-with-nuclear-test-now-ball-is-in-beijings-court-20170903-gy9sva.html

uk_grenada

Yes because we all know that leaders of many world countries use the worlds most toxic nerve agent to kill their own brothers in foreign airports. What a load of crxx.

scrubbedexpat098

Easy tiger, I'd say that most of them have done or sanctioned some right shameful things. You must think otherwise, good for you.

scot47

An examination of events in recent years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria might show that Kim should hold on to his warheads.

Shard

The rhetoric coming out of the US is a bit worrying. Nikki Haley claiming that NK is "begging for war" is over-ratcheting. if there is to be an attack against NK, surely it is SK (and probably Japan) that have the final word, and not the USA. Especially with the clown at the helm.