Two things:
1. Does anyone else think the "Pyongyang residents cheer the televised announcement (Reuters)" picture is hilarious. It is clearly the most forced photo they've ever seen to the point that I might as well assume that they have machine guns behind the camera.
2. I'm still questioning China's role in all of this. I know on the surface they condemn and yada yada but I just find it so hard to believe that they aren't still supporting them. First we know that even as of very recently they had been helping the program along. I HIGHLY doubt that they just changed their minds over night because Trump wanted them to. They would just make it more discrete.
The other point I want to make is more speculation, but It seems that their progress has picked up substantially since Trump's election. It is possible this is just a bias from hearing about it more. It just seems weird and discontinuous to me that the second a guy comes along and calls out China for what it is their proxy state becomes, almost over night, a state with full fledged hydrogen capabilities. On top of that they have started making overt shows of aggression. I know apart of this is probably just the differences between Obama and Trump. If you have a president who doesn't want to call it for what it is then just continue progress discretely until you have to be up front but in the meantime buy time. The other side though is it is just hard to believe that China is as powerless to controlling NK as they lead on. NK is essentially a dependent appendage to the PRC.
China's Foreign Ministry said:
[North Korea] disregarded universal opposition of the international community by conducting the test. We strongly urge North Korea side to face up to the firm will of the international community on the denuclearization of the peninsula, abide by relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, stop taking wrong actions that exacerbate the situation and are not in its own interest, and return to the track of resolving the issue through dialogue."
China here is (as multiple states do) appealing to the international community and the UN which they have a track record of ignoring when it suits them. When I read this I think yeah China obviously can't publicly support it but the response is so toned down and white washed that you can tell they obviously don't care and know thats what everyone wants to hear from them. If NK actually pissed China off (for testing NUCLEAR WEAPONS near their border) you would hear their typical irrational (almost child like) tone of WE ARE BIG CHINA SUBMIT OR DIE. I think from their perspective they see it as worst case scenario they lob some nukes at one of our enemies and gets destroyed in the process and then we will have a pretense to start the war we are preparing for when the time is right for us.
----
One commonality between NK and WWII Germany is a sense of desperation is driving their aggression. From the perspective of GD it seems that those groups of people can feel they are being pushed out which leads them to lash out (much like an animal backed into a corner). Many things can be justified by oneself if oneself feels their life is at stake. Crisis wars, it seems, are when societies revert back to its primitive animal brains of survival and is probably why the leaders and the society seem so irrational.