I can’t help wondering if NK struck some sort of deal with China.
Make a big blustery show, get into a scuffle with the U.S. Worse case, you lose some soldiers - more food for the rest. Pretty darned unlikely that the U.S. is going to push things once NK decides to back off (at what point that happens is the big question). Whatever happens, there’ll probably be a huge humanitarian crisis, even if also for show.
In return, while the U.S. and the rest of the world is distracted with NK, China can absorb Taiwan without a fight.
China doesn’t need to push like that - they’ll have Taiwan “back” within twenty years, anyway. I don’t think they have any more control over the Boy King than we do. The short-term hit to their economy from a new war on the Korean peninsula would be a lot worse than the hit to our own.
China can simply buy out Taiwan.