It was headline made in clickbait heaven: “North Korea official: We can hit China with nuclear-tipped missile.”

“Holy Toledo!” I thought, fumbling to open the story by the Asia Times.

I had spent the afternoon in a Wifi-less special collections bunker at the University of Leeds researching the Chinese-Korean border region in the 1930s and 40s, and was dying for something more current, more controversial, more laden with pixels and dopamine. This headline seemed sure to do the job.

As the web page struggled to open, one question danced around my mind. Who was this brazen North Korean official who