I don’t think China will become like North Korea. The Chinese are too proud to let that happen. However 毛澤東 earned a lot of street cred for driving the Japanese from China. Xi who must be obeyed has gotten a lot of street cred because of the improvement in the standard of living. And the trade surplus goes a long way to aiding that improvement. As long as the west keeps buying Chinese goods it validates the authoritarian government in China. Money talks and you-know-what walks. The Chinese know this and thus so called sanctions don’t really bother them.