That is, of course, the simmering conflict between US president, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-un, the self-proclaimed God king of North Korea.

While the underlying causes of the tension between the two nations have been around for decades, dating back to well before the end of World War 2, the situation has escalated markedly since Mr Trump entered the White House and Kim Jong-un ramped up his country's nuclear missile program.

Unlike his predecessors, who have generally been willing to follow the advice of the State Department, the intelligence services and the subject matter specialists who have devoted years to studying the peninsula, Mr Trump has literally taken control of the issue into his own hands.

He has repeatedly used both thumbs to unleash a Twitter storm of histrionic threats and childish abuse every time Kim Jong-un launched a new missile or conducted a fresh nuclear test throughout 2017.

Trump's epithets, which have included phrases such as "rocket man" and calling Kim "short and fat", are drawn from the language of the primary school playground. They don't come across as the words of a world leader conducting high level international diplomacy intended to stave off a catastrophe that could cost millions of people their lives.

Whereas Kim, who experts suggest is playing a well-rehearsed and stage managed game designed to secure concessions from the West while making his pariah state too costly a target to attack, has experience on his side, Mr Trump is coming from a different place.

Having vowed to "make America great again", he sees North Korea's attempts to become a nuclear power and the North Korean president's often childish attempts to provoke him, as personal affronts that must be answered in kind.

This is despite the fact he has been repeatedly assured, both by his own advisers and the governments of South Korea and Japan, that a military solution is not on the table.

Any US attack on North Korean rocket or nuclear facilities would provoke a devastating response against Seoul, the capital of South Korea and quite possibly Japan as well.

Such an attack would leave the north open to a massive US-led counter attack, send millions of terrified refugees across the border into China and throw the global economy into a tail spin.

China's investment in the camps, which are strategically positioned along its "porous" 1420 km long border with the rogue state, is an indication of just how worried the Middle Kingdom is about what may come.

While Australia has been distracted by domestic issues and President Trump has turned his attention to stirring up trouble in the Middle East for the moment, the Chinese have been hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

For everybodys' sakes let's hope that their precautions prove unnecessary.