This whole thing goes to show how North Korea is the only non great power sovereign state and only communist states can be trusted to manuever these situations against imperialism.
The DPRK didnt want to be a chinese satelite state or allow significant Chinese influence, had no delusions regarding the west and wanted to chart its own geopolitical course secure from imperialism. So they built the fucking bomb. Even when China in peak post deng pre xi, WTO and West good mode was pissing and crying for them not to , even when they along with Putin's dumbass joined in the sanctions. Even under the most vicious pressure from the country that had already genocided them. With literally no allies in the entire world. They put their heads down, suffered and persevered but they did it. They didnt have 5% of their population being SK agents with ATGMs hidden in their asses to sabotage them or a political sphere and elite dreaming about sending their kids to harvard and having swiss bank accounts. You guessed it, probably because they were communists.
They would have even done it even if the US carpet bombed them again and hundreds of thosuands were dying and did so without any guarantee that china would actualy help them in that situation despite having a paper somewhere saying they would. They would have turned Seoul into a parking lot with artillery until the last 30.000 people in Pyongyang bunkers and tunnels had a nuke button
And now they are reaping the benefits. Yes most of the world still shuning them and yes they under more pressure and attack than any country other than cuba can imagine. But the geopolitical events and changes created a situation where they can exercise their sovereigty and militarism to upgrade their technologies and energy access from co-benificial ties with russia and China also gives less of a shit to follow a bunch of sanctions they have been following ,and also doesnt want to be left behind in the russia-dprk bromance. And the future looks like more of that.
If they had a fraction of the brainworms iran had they would either be a smoking crater or a chinese dengifying vassal with its teeth taken out which doesnt sound that bad if you dont care about sovereignty between different socialist experiments and nations but whatever
Lots of fake Xi Quotes going around while he still has real bangers: