 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharpe. Our show today, Tensions on the Korean Peninsula. And joining us today, and just back from Korea yesterday, is Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. Wow. Korean Peninsula, always something going on there. And the big talk now is there's going to be this meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. So is it really going to happen? That's a good question that I don't have the full answer to, because I don't think anyone is for certain that it's really going to happen. But just yesterday, in fact, Kim Jong-un made the first official recognition that, in fact, there is a potential meeting between U.S. and DPRK. So that's the first inclination that they've even suggested that there might be a meeting. So if it does happen, I know we're dealing with a lot of this here, if it does happen, where might it be held at and when? Well, and Donald Trump has just said that it will be late May or June, which is the first time he said that. Originally, it was before the end of May. He's now pushed it possibly into early June. Isn't it Trump changing his mind? Go figure. And the speculation has been one of the names is Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, which is kind of a neutral place. And then another place, of course, is Penhunjong, which is where the South Korean president Moon Jae-in will meet Kim Jong-un at the end of April. And then the other possibility, which I'm sure people in Pyongyang would like, would be to have it in Pyongyang, which would mean President Trump would travel to Pyongyang and basically sort of come home to Kim Jong-un. I don't think the United States would like that symbolism. No, and that's probably why that won't happen. But that certainly is what the North Koreans would like to see. Well, maybe a deal could be made. You give us back the USS Pueblo and we'll go to Pyongyang. What do you think? Well, as I said, I think maybe do it on the Pueblo. Wow, how novel that would be. How novel. That would drive everybody's jaw. Well, OK, so Kim Jong-un's going to have a big meeting with President Moon of South Korea. And this is going to happen at the end of April. Is that correct? Right. OK, and that's to be held at Penhunjong. That's in Penhunjong. And the significance of that meeting is that they're actually going to do it in the Peace House, which is on the south side of the military demarcation line. So if you're familiar with Penhunjong, you basically have the North Korean Pamunggak up here, and then they walk down the steps and then there's these blue buildings that are the old UNC buildings. You come through the blue buildings and then there's this big, nice Peace House. And that's where they're going to have the meeting. And so that's normally where the North Koreans come to meet the South Koreans. So the significance is, while the first two meetings were actually held in Pyongyang, between Kim Il-sung and Kim Dae-jung and Noh Mu-hyun and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, this is going to be in Penhunjong and Kim Jong-un comes across into the south side of the DMC. So that's rather historic, isn't it? I mean, this would be the first time a leader of North Korea will set foot on South Korean soil. Correct. Wow. That's historic in and of itself. Well, okay. Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump. Both guys need a good haircut, I think it's fair to say. I don't know. Sarcasm. I better reign it in here. But is this going to mushroom into a wider forum? Six-party talks? Some people say a five-party talks. Yeah. Well, four-party would be more likely. But certainly six-party. That's sort of how the China angle fits in. As you know, last month Kim Jong-un went to Beijing and made his first trip outside the country and he visited Xi Jinping. And so that's significant because that really puts China at the center, which up until then, they had been sort of left out. And so there was concern in China that it was being left out. By going to Beijing and conferring with Beijing, he follows this normal pattern of North Korea sort of checking in with Beijing before they go and meet with the South Korean leaders. So certainly that would be the desirable end for China to go back to the six-party talks, or at least to go back to the four-party talks where you have South Korea, United States, China, and North Korea to talk about a peace settlement on the peninsula. So those are a couple of different variations that are possible. But certainly what many people are talking about is that even if you don't go back to the six-party talks, you go back to the 2005 joint statement, which remember the September 18, 2005 joint statement was by the parties in the six-party talks. And it was sort of an agreement that you would do word for word and action for action. So you'd really sequence everything, including denuclearization, economic integration into Northeast Asia, economic assistance, diplomatic recognition, energy assistance, and you roll that all in. And then you sequence all those things so that they occur sequentially and simultaneously. And of course, the challenge there is how the sequence works. But that's sort of one of the desired end states that people are looking at now is that would bring us back to 2005, which is where the six-party talks sort of fell apart. Four-party talks, North Korea, South Korea, China, the U.S. Okay, some people have said I've read a few places, five-party talks. In that situation, who would be the fifth party? Well, it would be either Japan or Russia. Well, if you're looking at it from the U.S. perspective, that would be the desirable part. And of course, Japan has made a real pitch to get involved with this. And right now, I don't think there's been anything more official, but Abe, Prime Minister Abe, has tried to get a meeting with Kim Jong-un in June, in June timeframe. There's nothing been confirmed yet. But clearly, Prime Minister Abe is coming to see Donald Trump in the middle of this month. And so he's angling to get the Japanese agenda back on the table with North Korea as well, which of course is the Japanese abductee issue. Right, right, right. What exactly is Kim's motivation to have this meeting? Chinese pressure? Lifting of sanctions? Well, you have to put this into the context of what he was doing four months ago, which is building a nuclear weapon and a missile capability that he says is capable of reaching the United States. So he's capable of threatening the United States with a nuclear weapon. He now is trying to position himself in such a way that North Korea is recognized as a nuclear weapon state with an intercontinental ballistic missile capability. So his objective, I think, in this situation is to have the United States acknowledge him as a nuclear weapon state and to engage in really arms control talks. To enhance his status? To enhance his status as a real player in the international system that has credibility as a nuclear weapon state. So I think that's his immediate goal here, is to establish that set of credentials. And so if President Trump isn't careful, that's how it comes across. Now there's more to that, of course, because now we get into this denuclearization issue of whose denuclearization are we talking about? Is he playing for the withdrawal of troops, U.S. troops from South Korea? Well, that certainly is the expectation. And then there's then a lot of people have warned President Trump that this is what he really is aiming for. And the reason is that goes really goes back to the 1972 Three Principles of Peaceful Coexistence on the Peninsula. And that second principle is independent means. And there's always been a disagreement between the North and the South about what independent means represents. And to the North Koreans, it has always represented you have to remove all foreign forces before you can have an independent reunification. And the South Koreans have always said, what that really means is it has to be between North Korea and South Korea and that we want to maintain the U.S. forces on the peninsula until we're assured that it's going to be a peaceful solution. So you have these conflicting ideas about what independent means are. So then you take this forward into the 1990s where the United States continued to be on the peninsula. The Chinese have now left. There's no Chinese left to support the North Koreans. So the North Koreans are saying, this is no longer fair. We have to get rid of the U.S. forces from the peninsula because it's unequal. But there are, I mean, North Korea has a mutual defense treaty with China. And Chinese troops are just over the border. I mean, if U.S. troops, for whatever reason, pulled out of South Korea, I mean, it does leave South Korea somewhat vulnerable because there's North Korea, but it always has its buddies right across the border. Well, yes, but you're looking at it from the South Korea or the American perspective where the North Koreans are saying, look, we are independent. See, it goes back to what do you mean by independent means. And so that's why the North Koreans, of course, they would like to see the Americans leave because it gives them the advantage. The beating with Trump from Kim Jong-un's perspective, as you said, this would enhance his image. Would it also help him to further consolidate his control within North Korea? Well, sure it would, because this, I mean, this is the whole angle that he's been playing, is that, remember, his Jungjin policy is to develop the North Korea as a nuclear state and then develop the economy. And so what he's trying to do at this point is he's trying to say, I've accomplished the first task. Now we're getting ready to move on to economic development. And that's why it becomes so important for him to engage South Korea because South Korea is the one that can provide economic assistance and prevent China from becoming the dominant player in the North, because that's also his concern. His concern is also trying to avoid becoming overly dependent on China. Interesting, interesting. And of course, especially during his uncle's reign before his uncle was eliminated, he was very charming with China. Very, very charming. Well, now, given President Moon's pan-Korean instincts, do you suspect that Kim is going to try to manipulate that in a manner that would serve as a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea? Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, there's no question that he is going to try to consolidate some sort of economic relationship and even a political relationship with South Korea and force South Korea to distance itself a bit from the United States. I think that that's pretty much a given that he sees this as that opportunity. And there will be this whole idea about a peace treaty being floated. Yeah. Okay. And I think what you're suggesting implicitly in your comments is, well, China probably likes this, but it's probably not totally in China's interest because North Korea is trying to move itself away from too much dependence on China. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so all the players have to really watch how this plays out because each one has its own set of interests. And as the relationship builds or doesn't build between South Korea and North Korea, it determines how the United States can interact and how China can interact and even how Russia and Japan can interact with the other players on the peninsula. So it becomes a real chess match once this sequence of summits starts. And that's why, again, I say it's the first one with the South Koreans is so important that both sides have to get it right. Moon Jae-in has to be very careful to avoid offending the Americans and promising things that the Americans can't agree to on the issue of denuclearization. And at the same time, the North Koreans have to be very careful that they position themselves in such a way that they can take advantage of Chinese and Russian assistance as well as South Korean assistance. Interesting. A lot of to think about. You're watching Asia and Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. We're talking about tensions on the Korean Peninsula and we're having a really great discussion. So don't go away and we'll be back in one minute. You can be the greatest. You can be the best. You can be the king. Come back and know your chess. You can be good. Talk to God. Go bang. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator and energy dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to Asia Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Carl Baker, a frequent visitor here with us at Asia and Review. He is from Pacific Forum where he is Executive Director. We're really lucky today because we are talking about tensions on the Korean Peninsula and he just got back from Korea yesterday. Well, okay, President Trump wants total denuclearization. Is that really achievable? Not in the short term. I mean, no matter what happens with the summits, there seems certain that North Korea has built so much of its reputation on being a nuclear state that it just seems very unlikely that it's prepared to accept an American definition of denuclearization, which is complete verifiable destruction of nuclear weapons. And I just don't see how that could possibly fit into any scenario that North Korea could see itself existing in the current time. I mean, they have to change their constitution to make that work at this point. And so, no, I think that very clearly their definition of denuclearization involves entire Peninsula denuclearization. And it goes back to the story I was talking about earlier, that in the 1990s, North Korea came to realize that in fact, the agreed framework wasn't going to work because the Americans kept insisting on more transparency about the nuclear program. And if you remember, if you take it up now to the early 2000s, when the whole Six Party Talks fell apart, it was because the Americans insisted on full disclosure and full transparency of what happened between 1989 and 1993, where the North Koreans wanted to maintain some ambiguity about what fissile material, nuclear weapon material they had. And so that's where the 2002 disagreement happened, which ultimately led to the breakdown of the agreed frame. Key word, verifiable. And I think if it doesn't sound too harsh, the Koreans don't have a really good track record at being credible? Well, no, they don't. They have cheated before. If you remember, in 2002, the real issue was the fact that they had then developed some capability to reprocess uranium, or to develop uranium-based materials. And so then the whole scenario shifted because now you had to worry about not only plutonium-based materials, but also uranium-based materials. And so it became even more difficult to verify it because you don't know where they have these uranium-processing facilities. Let's just say hypothetically, nice hypothetical question here. Kim Jong-un says, okay, we'll do it your way. We'll totally get rid of nukes. We'll be totally denuclearized. What do you think some mutiny from within is ranks? Well, yeah, it really is a hypothetical question. That's hard to answer. I warn you. And the reason it's hard to answer is because we really don't know the dynamics of North Korean leadership. I mean, it's easy to say Kim Jong-un is the supreme leader and everybody listens to Kim Jong-un. The fact is, is that it's much more complicated than that. There's people and individuals and organizations involved that we really can't guess how it works. There's some notions about who's in the inner circle, but we don't really know who's the decision-making group. My thinking is that there's a cabal that actually runs the country. And Kim Jong-un, yes, he plays an important part, but so does his sister, so do other people in organizations and positions that we may not fully understand the importance of. And so you see these old generals and these older gentlemen that are around Kim Jong-un, but we don't really understand the dynamics of who ultimately makes decisions that Kim Jong-un is charged with implementing. His sister, that's a very interesting point because she made quite a splash at the Olympics in South Korea. Is she a figurehead or does she really have some influence? Or is that one of those things that just can't determine? It's just like Kim Jong-un. You can't really tell if this is real power or if it's a face. It looks good in the media, and she does. She looks good in the media and how much she has influence and how much she's being put up as a front, as a face of the regime is really difficult to tell. I remember when Kim Jong-un first took over and I read these reports. I think it was in the New York Times. I can't remember the exact source. It said that there was dissension within different Korean army units, that some were pro-Kim Jong-un, some were against him, some were sort of plotting for him. Do you hear any of this kind of thing these days? No, I really can't say I do. And part of that goes to the other thing that's happened since Kim Jong-un took power. And that is that he's removed a lot of the old generals and a lot of the old military people who did have a lot of influence. And so the thinking is that that was done because there was some disloyal people in the system, and those people have been purged. And whether you want to believe some of the fantastic stories about being shot by artillery guns and all that isn't really relevant. But the fact is that those people have left the scene, and he now has, and his friends, have a much better control over the country. Have you heard of any assassination attempts? No, no. I mean, my sense is that the security structure, or the internal security structure is what I'm trying to say is so strong that you have neighborhoods that everyone has a watcher. And so it's very difficult for anybody to start any sort of, foment any sort of resistance to the regime itself. And so the regime pays a lot of attention to what happens in Pyongyang to maintain that very strong central core in the regime. And then as you move out to the periphery, those people become less important because they have no real power and no real ability to organize. So no, I mean, there may have been assassination attempts, but certainly nothing that's ever been made public. It's interesting you mentioned the street committees or residence committees that really keep a tight control over each part of Pyongyang or major cities, very similar to the Chinese system, very similar. Only probably much more pervasive. That's probably true. Well, let's get on to the American side here. Why is there yet to be a U.S. ambassador appointed to South Korea? What's the hang of? Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't have an answer for that. It certainly is, you could blame it on lack of organization within the Trump administration, I think. Some of it is just the inability to find someone that is suitable to the Trump administration. Some of it, you know, we had, of course, our good friend, Victor Cha, who had gone through part of the process, and then it was withdrawn because of comments he had made. There's still this residue from the campaign where people signed letters saying never Trump and all this. That certainly is part of the problem. Was he in that vote? No. He never did sign any of the letters, and that's why he was one of the candidates that made it as far as he did. But the other part of it is that clearly the Trump administration has simply not put the priority on appointing ambassadors to places that traditional thinkers in foreign policy see as important. When I was at a food on university doing my research, one of my office mates was a Chinese Korean specialist. So he invited me to a meeting of fellow Chinese Korea specialists one day, and they were very strong negative feelings about Victor Cha, calling him hawkish and this sort of thing, claiming he didn't speak Korean, which I never heard before. I was assuming that he spoke Korean. And then he was not a favorite with them. And I assume he was probably not a favorite with the Chinese government. Probably not, because I mean, his history was really with the Bush administration in the early 2000s. Well, you know, beyond the lack of a U.S. ambassador in Seoul, it seems that the national security establishment in Washington is somewhat inhabiting. The new Secretary of State has not been officially appointed yet. We have a changeover in leadership at the National Security Council. And it takes a while to smooth all these things out. Some people say that the Secretary of Defense is maybe in some sort of jeopardy that he is going to be outmaneuvered by some of these changes in personnel. So I'm wondering how well prepared the U.S. is going to be going into this negotiation. That's a real concern, I think, that it's not clear who's laying the groundwork. You know, normally, in a normal administration, you would have a whole series of low-level meetings, and there would be some decisions about what you could expect from the summit itself. In this case, you know, like it or not, it's starting to look like it's going to be President Trump shows up, Kim Jong-un shows up, and there's not a lot of precordination about what happens. And so that's what makes a lot of people nervous, is that you could end up with an agreement that is just simply unacceptable to one side or the other based on a lack of information, a lack of understanding of what each side is saying, because there has been so much miscommunication over the years. Now, having said that, you know, in the last couple of days, we've seen news reports that, in fact, the CIA is meeting with somebody somewhere in North Korea, that there is some dialogue going on. So we have to be a little bit careful that we're completely dismissive of the integrity of what's happening in the United States in preparation for this, because we aren't being told everything that's going on, I think. So we need to be a little bit careful, unless we have private information or secret information, which I don't, that there is actually more preparation than we fully realize. Okay. Well, we're down to one minute, but I'm going to pop this question on you, as unfair as it might be, giving that we have one minute left. Do we underestimate the North Koreans? Yes, I think over the years we have. I mean, that's part of the problem that we've had, is we've always said that it's ready to collapse, that the system can't last, and so we need to, you know, we need to prepare for the collapse of North Korea. And that's not a tendency just in the United States. It's a tendency in South Korea, too. You know, in many ways, since the early 90s, the South Koreans feel that they've won the war, and they just need to figure out how to close it. And the United States has felt the same way, that this is really a failed state. And in fact, it's more resilient than we've given it credit for. So I think we do sometimes underestimate the capacity for that regime to stay in power. Interesting. Well, I think we'll have to end it here. I want to thank you for joining us today here on Asian Review. My guest is Min Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. He just got back from Korea yesterday, so he brings us a wealth of up-to-date insight. And I want to thank you for joining us, and we'll see you again next week when my guest will be Russell Hamer, who is a trade specialist. And we'll be talking about a lot of trade issues. We'll see you then.