I’d laugh at that article, until I remember that we will soon be going through what NK is going through, given our debt. In their case, they were a (relatively) advanced and highly industrialized country, but then the cheap oil from the Soviet Union / Russia stopped, and the lights started to flicker, and then they went out for good, and then the people starved. Sure, Communism didn’t help, but they depended on cheap imports, did not have a strategic reserve (or at least a large enough one), and were powerless to respond once they were cut off.
It’s only a matter of time before China gets tired of giving away their wealth to us, and does the same. They don’t give us oil, but they do give us the spark plugs and circuit cards that make our tractors run. Once that flow stops, our machines, slowly, stop too.
Have our bureaucrats tired of their welfare state?
Funny you say that, just read today China’s thinking of cutting the NORKS off first... like, now: