at one time that might have been true but I would suspect that rational heads in China would not want to give such technology to an inherently unstable regime.

at one time that might have been true but I would suspect that rational heads in China would not want to give such technology to an inherently unstable regime. Similar to how Russia operated, their allies might end up with nukes in their territory but they were Russian nukes, same as the US. In the last decade or two, I doubt China wants a more dangerous North Korea. It could be that NK is attempting to play China like it plays the rest of the world. We always assume China is pulling all the strings but maybe NK knows some strings it can pull too