Now you might see a very interesting adversarial NK-China standoff, and then watch if/when Putin steps up to the plate to be friendly with Pyongyang and sense this opportunity.
It seems "Fishlips" (Jang Song Taek, RIP), before he was arrested recently and then machine-gunned yesterday by the regime, was working behind the scenes with the Chinese to get the fat, youngest one Kim Jong Un deposed, and replaced with the eldest brother, Kim Jong Nam, who is either in Macao or China somehere and more China-controlled, and go a more centrist, moderate, Chinese-style economic reform route for North Korea. There are three brothers here at play. Eldest (Kim Jong Nam) is from a different wife (of Kim Jong il), then Brother Number Two and Three are blood brothers. Brother Number Three is Kim Jong Un, now in power. He ordered his other elder brother, Kim Jong chol, to go and arrest Fishlips, as even Fishlips' close aides or military could not do it, it seems. I suspect he took a delegation of heavily armed secret police. It seems even a more hardline faction will emerge in Pyongyang. This is NOT good in a regional sense. PS I also note from photographs that "Fishlips" was apparantly roughed up a bit during his detention, i.e. wrists and hands turning purple, and also some swelling around the eyes where he might have been punched.