This (via The Marmot’s Hole) is strange:
A 72-year-old deputy in North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly in May applied for political asylum in South Korea from a third country, the Monthly Chosun reported. The magazine’s August edition published Sunday said the parliamentarian, who is using the alias Kim Il-do, is being questioned by the National Intelligence Service on his inside knowledge of the North’s weapons development.
Kim reportedly told investigators North Korea had 4 kg of plutonium and manufactured a one-ton nuclear weapon, but added that North Korean scientists were doubtful about ability of the developed nuclear weapon. That was why, he said, the Stalinist country had been trying to make a miniaturized nuclear warhead weighing 500 kg, the magazine reported.
Kim testified he himself visited Taiwan to sell North Korean-built missiles, the monthly said.
Is there some clever spin going on here? If there’s anything likely to kick China into doing something about North Korea, it’s the possibility that the Koreans might be selling weapons to the Taiwanese. Or is it, as one of Marmot’s commenters suggests, the Chinese being clever and implying that the North Koreans are out of their control.
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