My (purely amateur) analysis -
The Chinese leader has met President Trump.
He has no doubt (correctly) assessed him as a man of principle and resolve.
He therefore knows that there is a point at which President Trump will
- with or without the cooperation of our South Korean friends -
take action to neutralize Kim.
Faced with having a unified Korea (under the South) or a US vassal state (unlikely)
the Chinese would act to occupy and absorb the NORKS.
Despite cultural differences and tensions, the result for the populace
in the North could not help but be a vast improvement.
(The ChiComs may be a bleak and rigid culture by our standards
but compared to what the Kims have wrought they would no doubt be
welcomed as saviors by the people of North Korea.
Full bellies dontchano?)
Anyway, this is a long roundabout way of saying that if we
(US) invade then it’s a bloody conflict.
But if the ChiComs invade, I think their biggest problem
would be processing the mass desertions and defections.
Now I’ll defer to everyone else who will tell me how little I
understand about the social/military reality of the situation.
I think that is a pretty good observation. It is a guess, though, as is any other prognostication. The Chinese, as the Europeans and the Russians, have never dealt with a man like Trump before. They can’t read him by calculating the American Oligarchy’s desires. That makes him quite opaque to them. Anything he does is unexpected.