Beneath this polished veneer lies mass starvation and poverty.

At a time when the world is wrestling with perhaps it’s greatest humanitarian crisis since World War Two a scenario is developing in the Far East which has the potential to eclipse even the worst that Russian air strikes and President Assad are capable of. It concerns North Korea.

Just when we had managed to convince ourselves that we had reigned in Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the ‘Hermit State’ with its mad boy-wonder brags to the world that he has exploded a hydrogen bomb. He then follows this up a short time later by firing a rocket into space demonstrating that he can deliver his terrible toy virtually anywhere in the world.

Quite how his bankrupt state ever got the wherewithal to finance so horrendously an expensive operation as a nuclear bomb programme is something of a mystery (although I suppose starving its people helps) as indeed it is a mystery where he got the techno/scientific expertise to pull it off. Pakistan, in this regard, has a lot to answer for as one of its scientists is said to have sold the essential start up information. If this is so, what a crime against humanity this was. Pakistan itself is highly unstable and many consider that it is only a matter of time before it falls to the Taliban who may then gain access to its own illicit nuclear arsenal.

The bald fact that now confronts the world is that a pitiless, paranoiac delinquent has been allowed to assemble the ultimate weapon of mass destruction as well as the means of delivery. In truth we should have been much less worried about the mad mullahs of Iran acquiring it than Kim Jong-un.
What sort of message does it send out to the world that we have allowed this to happen? There are other states far bigger and more significant than North Korea with its 25 million people who may judge that their status in the world, as well as their ability to intimidate their neighbours, will be mightily enhanced by their possession of the bomb too.

Only the long-established democracies – which have the necessary checks and balances – can properly be trusted to hold such weapons and even then it would be better if none of them held such awesome power. Short of a ground invasion of North Korea, there are only two options available to the world. One is for the United Nations to consider expelling North Korea as a member and applying comprehensive sanctions backed up by a naval blockade, if necessary, to ensure that its strictures are not breached. The other is to call on China to do its duty by the rest of humanity.
North Korea is impervious to the protests of the entire world so long as it has the support of its northern neighbour. The umbilical cord of China is what keeps it going. Without it, it must bend. China, for its part, is fearful that if it cuts this cord it will have a Syria-style rush across its border. It is also fearful that a collapsing North Korea will fall into the arms of its prosperous and powerful neighbour, South Korea, whose armies, alongside its long-standing ally America, will advance to the Yalu river, the boundary between it and North Korea. China must be assured that the latter will not happen.

As it happens, China is furious at Kim Jong-un’s brinkmanship as is North Korea’s other neighbour in the region, Russia. There is now talk of America providing a shield for its allies in the region called THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) – a new Star Wars – and this absolutely terrifies both China and Russia as they cannot match America in this technology and it threatens to render obsolete their own nuclear arsenals.

So now is the time to get tough, not just with North Korea but with its indulgent backer, China. Either it wishes to curtail nuclear proliferation, which will surely happen if North Korea gets away with it, or it does not. Failure to come on side will spark an arms race in East Asia. With tensions already high in the South China seas over the huge oil deposits contested by six nations, this is the last thing that China must want. It risks a Balkan-style powder keg situation such as led up to the First World War igniting.