Besides China, there are other sources North Korea can have used to aquiver this technology. Both North Korea, Libya, Iran and China did get help developing nuclear technology from a network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear physicist often regarded as the fonder of the Pakistani nuclear enrichment program.

He again acquired the technology in Europe when working for Urenco, a nuclear fuel company.

The whole Q.A Khan affair is quit a fascinating story actually.

Some more information on http://world.time.com/2011/07/07/a-q-khans-revelations-did-p... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan

I did also see a very good documentary about this, but I can not find it online right now.

Edit: Here is the BBC documentary about Khans dealings in nuclear secrets: http://www.unewstv.com/6821/bbc-documentary-on-dr-abdul-qade... . Stranger then fiction, it has a plot like a top thriller movie.

I wouldn't be surprised if the nuclear physicist in The Dictator was based on Khan. He sounds like he's proud of his work and I admire that, moral judgements on nuclear weapons aside.

"It seems suspicious when a D student aces a big test."

More like when a D student marks their own test, scores 5% and announces they've passed.

But the current situation is more analogous to a D student getting a D on the big test. Their first nuclear tests were so weak that there was debate over what they even were, and they almost certainly did not represent a successful test of the intended bomb yield. This latest test was pretty definitely nuclear, but if it was a fusion weapon as claimed then it was again a major failure.

I'm not sure if any other nuclear weapons state has had such a string of failures. Both the US and USSR had successful full yields for their tests of their first fission and fusion bombs. China's first fusion weapon test yielded over 3 megatons.

North Korea's test yielded probably under 10 kilotons, and they're going around bragging about an H-bomb. I'd say that deserves a D, at best.

Is China supposed to be the D student? They're the third in class, pissed that they're neither valedictorian nor salutatorian. Definitely not the D student.

And it's not North Korea either, as they're F- students. I still don't understand the big deal here, they fizzle-yielded their first two tests, and their claims of an H-bomb are ridiculous. They don't have the infrastructure, expertise, or materials to make Ulam-Tellers. This is bad propaganda from crackpot murderers.