The fact that Mr. Kim did not conduct a nuclear test over the weekend, timed to the anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, the founder of the country and its nuclear program, may indicate that Mr. Xi has given him pause. In the White House’s telling, Mr. Xi is responding to pressure by Mr. Trump to threaten a cutoff of the North’s financial links and energy supplies — its twin lifelines as a state…

The North is trying to create the sense that it is too late for any such defanging — that it has reached a tipping point in its nuclear push. That is why Mr. Kim stood for hours as so many missiles rolled by on Saturday, carried on portable launch vehicles that can be hidden in hundreds of tunnels bored into North Korean mountains.

For all the talk of an eventual intercontinental missile that can reach the United States, one of the stars of the show was a missile of lesser range — the Pukguksong-2, also known as the KN-15. It is a solid-fuel rocket that can be launched in minutes, unlike liquid-fueled missiles, which take hours of preparation. That means they are far less vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike from an American missile launched from a base in Japan or from a carrier strike group like the one Mr. Trump has put off the Korean coast.

The KN-15 was successfully tested in February. On Saturday, it was paraded in public for the first time, like a conquering hero fresh from a moon landing.