Modern day Billy Bunter, with very noisy toys.

Videos of Kim Jong Un laughing in delight after every nuclear test or a successful launch of a missile, like a modern day Billy Bunter, have become regular on news channels. The more the world condemns him the more he enjoys giving the finger to everyone. Given the enormous outcry they have created it is hard to believe that North Korea has carried out just 6 nuclear tests since 2006, the latest one being a hydrogen bomb, two days back. Even more worrying, it claims to have mastered the technology of making a thermonuclear weapon small enough to fit a missile. Experts of all shades have opinions on what Kim Jong Un 'really' wants and they are all agreed that, 1. he is not a nutter and knows what he is doing and 2. he wants the US and South Korea to lift sanctions and trade with his nation. But why? From 1961 to his assassination in 1979, Park Chung-hee was a brutal dictator, who apparently beat his wife, but he transformed the economy of South Korea, by making friends with old enemy Japan and encouraging growth of chaebols, which are creating enormous wealth to this day. At that time the US and Europe were the centers of wealth, but now China is the second richest country in the world and North Korea has a long border with China. In fact, clothes labeled 'Made in China' are actually being produced in North Korea because of rising labor costs in China. If it stops wasting money on missiles and nuclear weapons, which it can never use, it can become rich by becoming a cheap manufacturing hub for China, Japan and South Korea. Why does it want a deal with the US? The theory is that Kim Jong Un has seen what happened to Saddam Hussein and Col Gaddafi and wants to make sure that the same does not happen to him. But that is senseless. The US is friends with dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Thailand, so would accept a prosperous dictatorship under the Kim dynasty, as long as it does not threaten either Japan or South Korea. So are these tests really directed against China? The nuclear test of 3 September was just as the Brics summit was about to start, in May it tested a missile just as the One Belt, One Road meeting was starting and in March it tested a new type of rocket engine just before Xi Jinping was to meet US Secretary of State, Rex Tillersen. Why would it want to annoy the only source of trade it has? We cannot know, but it could be because China is not allowing North Korea to open its economy, in case it becomes prosperous and unites with the South. It is the same game that China is playing with India, by supporting Pakistan, and Pakistan is playing by supporting the Taliban. Being too clever can rebound.