For decades we have spoon fed China money and technology with the hope that they would gravitate to a softer more democratic western style of thinking and it has worked but unfortunately only at the lower levels, with those that do not wield power.  China is a dictatorship and only those of the same mindset as will rise to power any internal challenges are snuffed out.

Trump needs to drop the Taiwan bargaining chip as it is bringing out the bully in China it so carefully hides on the world scene and instead focus on duties and technology transfer bans. He may look to how China moves it currency offshore by buying foreign assets to protect them from its own currency devaluations. You can't sabre rattle with a mindset that builds its own island, in the middle of nowhere, to extend territorial claims.

As for China they are takers, if they were wise they would do to North Korea what they did to Nepal or are they afraid that NK will fight back? If they did Trump would hug them like Putin.