To be a puppet string pulled by china, the pre-requisite is a successful coupe to topple fat kim first and there's no sign of it to happen; at least not for now. Apparently he is under surveillance by fat kim 24 hrs/day,7 days/week. Likely he was about to make some announcement or be the mouthpiece of S korea OR he was killed to blame the killing on fat kim OR S korea got rid of a chinese puppet in waiting . Just my guess..