From here, Kim looks like the levelheaded leader who was trying to build confidence — releasing American detainees, blowing up the nuclear testing site — while Trump looks impetuous and unreliable.

“America’s national image has been damaged ever since Trump announced his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal,” the Global Times, a newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, wrote in an editorial Friday. “The cancellation of the Singapore meeting will only enhance its negative image, regardless of any explanation provided by Washington,” it wrote.

From a tactical standpoint, the fact that it’s Trump who canceled the summit could be seen as a win-win for North Korea, said Mark Fitzpatrick, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington.

“If the summit with Trump can be salvaged, they get the benefit of being treated as an equal with the superpower and staged process of denuclearization,” he said. “And if it can’t be, the result is that a wedge has been driven between South Korea and the U.S.”