Domestically Trump is a very weak president, the only strength he can show is in foreign affairs, hence this facade. It's the season, Grouse season shooting and North Korea is let out to play by China, it's that predictable. China will reign them in once they have achieved their goals, probably something to do with disputed islands in the region. It's no coincidence North Korea have fingered Guam, the launch pad of American military incursions into the region, they normally use the south or Japan. Maybe Trump will have to tone down the Chinese trade war some more.. And once China achieves economic and milatray superiority North Korea regime will be decapitated by its puppeteer.
I don't think it works like that at all. China has never been able to control North Korea, no matter how much they invest or withhold. Beijing would not at all have wanted them to go nuclear. And they are, above all, absolutely terrified of the regime being "decapitated," as it would risk a complete meltdown - civil war between rival Party factions, millions of refugees streaming into China, and South Korean hardliners and the Americans inevitably blundering their way in. In a strange way, the North Korean regime's very fragility gives it real leverage with China.
Believe it or not, small countries are often the most determined to assert their independence, and some of them do it quite skillfully, no matter how reliant they remain on outside assistance. The United States, for example, contributed about 70% of South Vietnam's budget, but they was barely even able to understand what was going on in Saigon, led alone choreograph things. The Cold War vision of superpowers and puppets gets passed down, but it's extremely rare for things to work that way.
