Steven Vincent Johnson wrote:
Ed sez:
Jed sez:
If it is a hoax, they have fooled the Chinese government, and enraged
it. Since they depend on that government for survival, it seems like a
stupid thing to do.
Of course, this assumes the Chinese are really upset. Having NK being a
nuclear power to distract attention from what the Chinese are doing
would be a clever ploy. We shall have to wait to see what the Chinese
actually do to NK.
Ed
That's a tad too conspiratorial for me, even though I would agree with the
likelihood that what China says should not necessarily be linked with what
they eventually do.
>From what I gather China is terrified of the disquieting possibility of
furthering the collapse of the regime.
China also is a rather extreme proponent of non-interference in the
domestic affairs of other countries. That's been proposed as part of
the reason that China (and Russia) seem to oppose all action to stop
Iran from building their own nukes. (The fact that Iran is in Russia's
back yard has had me scratching my head over that one -- if I lived in
Russia I sure wouldn't want Iran to have nuclear arms, yet Putin doesn't
give any indication of caring about the issue.)
