Let us be clear — Beijing bankrolled this monster.
As Kim Jong-un continues his bellicose bluster, now having moved a second missile to North Korea’s east coast, we cannot forget: it’s the Middle Kingdom that has for decades funded Pyongyang’s armies and kept this cruelest of regimes afloat.
Forget Kim’s crankiness. North Korea is one of the most gruesome, warped dictatorships the world has ever seen. It’s estimated that is has up to a quarter of a million political prisoners, in gulags that are probably beyond human comprehension. When I worked as a journalist in Asia, news would filter through, now and then, of unspeakable acts done in the concentration camps, especially to women and even children. Last year my colleague David Blackburn had a harrowing interview with a North Korea escapee who was so brainwashed he had betrayed his mother’s own plans for freedom to the DPRK authorities.
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