 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Okay, we're back. We're live. We're here. This is Think Tech. And more specifically, this is Russell Hanla. And we're talking about the future of APEC. He's a senior APEC official at Hawaii, the future of APEC under the Trump administration. We're also going to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize today with Russell, Think Tech Asia. So welcome back to the show, Russell. Yeah, thank you, Jay, for inviting me again. I know this is a good subject for me and I know the Nobel Peace Prize. I was a nominator. Actually, I was a candidate for the past four years from year 2012. When I first got nominated or as a candidate, I know the state legislature, the Senate president, and the Speaker of the House, they both nominated me and our former governor as well. And so, you know, I had a big support with the state officials here. And prior to that, I was able to influence the U.S. congressional side and get the support of the State Department, the United States Trade Representative's Office and the President's Office as well as promoting peace to Asia Pacific region. So today, I was going to talk about the Nobel, Alfred Nobel, who was the founder of the Nobel Peace Lottery Award. He invented dynamite. Exactly, I think. A lot of people died because of his invention. I know. I think he was one of the, you know, the one that he actually invented. Like, he had over like 355 patents worldwide. And if you look at the history, I know he was born in Stockholm, Sweden in October 21st, 1833. And by the time he was nine years old, his father was an inventor, an engineer, and was into arms, like making gunpowder and making bombs and stuff like that back then. But what happened was his father started working in Russia, was in St. Petersburg, and making these weapons for the Russian. For the Tsar. With the Tsar, back then. And anyways, when we look- What's the secret of gunpowder anyway? I'm sorry, dynamite. How does it differ from gunpowder? Why is dynamite dynamite? I think that when you look at it, how Alfred Nobel, that he worked with the nitrogrysalin, which is a liquid-fied chemical, has a chain reaction that's like 10 or 20 times of thick as a gunpowder. So he was able to use the nitrogrysalin into the dynamite with the gunpowder, so it controlled the blast. So it knows which direction it's going to go and the capability of the damage. So in terms of small components, it had a devastating effect to the- So not only, they used it in the, you know, not even like missiles, not the bombs, like they're doing the war one day, so they used to pack a lot of dynamites and put it into those capsules that look like a projectory. And a lot of people died because of that. Yeah. So he made a lot of money, and he created the foundation. Yeah. I actually, then those dynamites played a major role for revolutionizing industry worldwide because it was used for construction, mining, road buildings, because you needed to blast certain bedrocks of granite stones, so it was thought to break this mining and tunneling and all that. So dynamite, that's like in the Cowboys and Indians, you know, back in the 1800s, you know, they used the dynamite. That was one of his inventions. And when Alfred Nobel, he was in the United States too. And he met John Erickson, who invented the Erickson electronics. You know, if you go to Walmart, he might have the Erickson RCVs or recorders, you know, radios. Sure, sure. These are the next phones, yeah. Exactly. And he worked with John Erickson back in the 1850s. And matter of fact, he had a U.S. patent on these gas meters back in, so he spent, he was in the United States for about a year. And he went back to Stockholm, Sweden, and he started this amination factory in 18, I think in the 1860s or in the 50s, yeah. Then what happened was in the 1962 and 64, in 1862, he started the amination factory. And 1864, there was a big accident of blast in the factory. And he lost his younger brother in a dynamite or explosion in the factory. So he felt really bad. So he wanted to control the explosion. So in 1866, he made a dynamite and got a patent on it. And that was the start. And throughout the early days of patents, yeah. And what happened was, you know, he was generating wealth. And if he wasn't married, he was a single man. So when he passed away in 1896, he left the will. And he wanted to start the Nobel Peace, awarding for the categories from physics, chemistry, literature, medicine. And those are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. And you get to meet the king and the queen every year. They award the Nobel for Lottery in those categories. So there are various categories. Yes. But the bottom, the underscore is that you got to do something for the benefit of peace. Oh, for the benefit for the humanitarian, for the human rights, for the sake of advancement for... So a lot of scientists and medical doctors could get the award for the medicine side or even physics, you know, the physics... So it's not just peace. So it has chemistry, physics, literature as well. And the peace is the Lottery for Peace is in Norway also. It's a separate... You're not up for chemistry. You're up for peace. Yeah, I'm for the peace using for my APEC master plan, because I'm trying to bring peace to Asia-Pacific region with my master plan. So let's talk about that. So the dominations that you've received, which sound to be all across the board, and sounds like you have a pretty good chance of winning this award, are all about your APEC master plan, right? Actually, basically, when I proposed my APEC master plan in year 2012, when I first drafted it, after, you know, state of Hawaii, we hosted the 2011 APEC conference here. So the following year, I drafted up an APEC master plan, including 21 countries, and I broke it down into regions southeast, west, you know, south, and more like I followed like the European Union's Eurozone concept where, you know, we brought it, and I wanted to make Hawaii the headquarters for the Northern Zone. And a great idea. And basically, because we're more open, we can do things with due diligence and transparency here in Hawaii. You, in your capacity as the senior APEC official in Hawaii, you make a plan, and you suggest this plan, what, the United States government? Or maybe you suggested to all of the member nations, there are 21 of them, right, of APEC? Who do you suggest that plan? Actually, when I proposed it, I proposed it to the APEC organization as a whole, which is in Singapore as a headquarters. And we have an APEC national center in Seattle, Washington that orchestrate forums and guest speakers, and they have a special conference and broken down to different categories. And so, basically... So what was special about the plan? Actually, it just kind of followed up the Bogart, because as you know, APEC has a plan for economic development. They want all 21 countries or APEC countries to have a free trade on the Asia-Pacific region area. That's one element of it. And so I mean, you know, basically, when I proposed my APEC master plan, we wanted, like TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, have all 21 countries be in it, or even with the RCEP, our regional economic conference, economic partnership. So the plan is to give a course of action to APEC, make its activities, its meetings, more beneficial? Yes. And basically, I've been following up, and every year, when every country hosts this APEC, based on my master plan, I prepare a strategic business plan. And I have done that in China, when China hosted in 2013 and 2014 was in Indonesia. I mean, 2013 was in Indonesia, and year 2014 was in China, Beijing. And the following year, it went to Philippines, in Manila. And last year was in Peru, and this year is in Vietnam, so I just finished our strategic business plan for Vietnam. May you summarize that for us? What do you say? Actually, it's a position paper on what benefits the United States and Hawaii, how we can do the business on a bilateral basis with Vietnam. And if the United States corporations and business wants to work with other APEC countries, they can follow that guidelines as well. So when you make a plan, or a strategic plan like this, I guess the master plan is one thing, the strategic plan is a part, the smaller plan to advance one element of the master plan, I guess. Yes. And basically, I just wanted to look into each country's weaknesses and strength, what kind of natural resources they have in terms of import, export, and what can United States assist them in that way as well? We can do the trade and commerce, and maybe in the future, we can do a joint venture kind of project. So is this a bilateral thing when you do a strategic plan like this, or are you operating within the 21 country APEC group? Actually, I go through the 21 countries APEC group because there's a business advisory council and a working group that each country has a three representative from the business industry that attends. And they meet year-round. So it's like, year-round, they meet with different committees. And it's like a United Nation in a certain way. I think APEC has their own identity. But it's economic. Yes, it's economics, but they can tie that into other means as well. And what I did was I included military as well, because I wanted to bring peace and get some of these ministry of defense people involved with the 21 countries. And I include a RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii, because that creates business opportunity with a defense contractor. And there's all these support groups that give, and they can tie that into the space industry and use that space for the technology transfer, the military application, and for the space for Mars mission. And just last night, we had the first episode of the Ken Burns film about Vietnam. And I'm fresh on that. So I'm interested to hear about the relationship, as it exists today, through APEC or directly between the United States and Vietnam, which is still a communist country. And especially on the landscape created by all of the trouble they've had all through the years in Vietnam. From the French arrival in 1858 on forward, they've been treated badly. And we have treated them badly. And I wonder, A, what is our current relationship with them? How good is it? And two is what can your plan do to improve what economic relations between the United States and Vietnam? Actually, when I drafted my strategic business part of Vietnam, I had a lot of dialogue with a lot of the professors from Vietnam who was attending at the East-West Council Center. And I met some of the close friends. So in terms of economics, and we had a good dialogue, and I was asking them what are the needs and wants of Vietnam. And I know they're in the robustity right now. And in terms of public and private policy, public policy, they want to reform their government from communist regime going to social democratic reform. So in other words, they want to be more open with the businesses. They want the private sector to strive and be more entrepreneurial. That's pretty good. And I think, you know, I think Vietnam learned a lot from the past, the country, because of the war they had and the hardship they went through. Yeah. So are they listening to your plan? Is Vietnam listening? Is the United States listening? Are they going to take heed from what you've suggested in the strategic plan between the United States and Vietnam? I think it's going to give them a guideline. I know the way I prepared my business plan is like I wanted to use the existing laws in terms of rural law and what's out there. And this is what we can offer and what Vietnam needs and wants are. And vice versa, Vietnam wants to do good with the United States. And they want to work with us. And we have so much cultural student exchange with Vietnam right now. The Scheidler College has a significant installation in Ho Chi Minh City. And there's so much Vietnamese Americans that live in Hawaii as well with the continental United States that they're contributing citizens. And they've been, you know, they've been since after the Vietnam War, they, you know, they migrated here and they want to do good. And they have proven that they're good Americans in general. Okay. So it's a fertile ground for a good relationship. Take a short break, Russell Hanra, a senior U.S. senior official for APEC in Hawaii. We're talking about APEC and we're talking about the Nobel Peace Prize that he's been nominated for. We'll be right back and we'll find out where the Trump administration figures in all of this. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at one o'clock, I present Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Manila, where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Manila. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host of Likeable Science on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., I hope you'll join me for Likeable Science, where we'll dig into science, dig into the meat of science, dig into the joy and delight of science. We'll discover why science is indeed fun, why science is interesting, why people should care about science and care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great. It's all entertaining. It's all educational. So I hope to join me for Likeable Science. Okay, we're back live. This is Think Tech Asia. We're here with Russell Hamna. He's the U.S. senior official for APEC in Hawaii. That's the APEC is the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. Cooperation. Funny name. But they've been meeting for a long time. There are 21 countries involved and Russell's been with them a long time. He's been at these meetings that they have around the Pacific Rim, and he's been writing their master plan to develop a business among the members, which is what APEC is really all about. So you wrote the master plan and you wrote this strategic plan with Vietnam, which I think is important. And you've been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as a result of your efforts in this regard. Where does the Trump administration fit in all this? They don't like TPP. I'm not sure they like APEC. Do they like you, Russell? I think in terms of the State Department and in terms of Mr. Trump or the President Trump, I think he knows me. I was fortunate enough to attend the Trump University and study some real estate and development. So he thinks I'm one of his predecessors that actually went through the Trump University. But I got my own vision and my own—actually, it's funny how it happened. When I proposed my APEC master plan and I drafted it, I didn't see it. It was going through that direction because I wanted to kind of unify Asia Pacific region. And with the free trade agreement, following the Bogar doctrine of having all APEC countries have a free trade area by year 2020, which gives us about three years. Time is a waste. Exactly. But I think in terms of the new administration with President Trump, we have a good team with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He understands where I'm coming from, as well as our United States trade representative, Robert Eisenhower. And we have our United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, and she knows that, you know, what are my efforts all about and trying to bring peace to the region by not creating any devastation of—and I wanted to apply my—because in the past, I did draft a resolution with the state legislature, and that went to the United Nations as a guidelines with the North Korea issue, with missile crisis. And I wanted to have some kind of peace signing treaty, if possible. Because there never was a peace treaty between North and South Korea, in that sense. It was still pending for—North and South Korea, in that sense. And the national treaty never happened on the DMZ zone over there. So what happened was they separated North and South Korea. So you think the treaty would help? I think if—you know, we try to do that with the Six Nations Security Talk. So that's been pending already. Negotiate a resolution of the— Or some kind of means to have a dialogue again. I think now, with all these things that's happening— What happened to the Six Party Talks? They seem to go off the table. I guess we lost interest because China kind of shied away and the Russian didn't want to—because back in about two years ago, three years ago, when they had that land grabbing with Ukraine, with the Crimea incident, with the Russian Federation crossing over the border. And I guess—so what happens is a retaliation. And the G-8 countries, when Russia was a member of the G-8, and they kind of took Russia out with the G-7 countries. So Vladimir Putin felt kind of sour, you know, and he didn't want to cooperate as much with— So the Six Party Talks fell apart? Yeah, fell apart. I think in order to bring the North Korea, you got to get the Russians involved. I think they can have a—not only the China, because they said, you know, we're blocking the economic trade, like 90 percent of—because of the economic sanction in the United Nations, and like 30 percent of oil are being embargoed right now with sanctions. You need Russia for sanctions, you need China for sanctions, and you need them on a security council to help you out if you wanted those sanctions. And we don't have them. So I really wonder whether the administration's moves to increase the sanctions on North Korea really will work, given the diplomatic difficulties we've been having with both Russia and China. Exactly. You know, I think, like we said that everything's on the table, but we want to have a democracy kind of a protocol approach or diplomatic kind of approach. We don't want to go out and kind of destroy any regime or anything. And we just want to make sure that our international community is trying to resolve this issue as well. But you know, the problem is trust, don't you think? I mean, for example, that movie last night—and we'll see a few more segments of it as we go through the week here—really portrayed the ugly American in terms of foreign policy in Vietnam. That one thing, after another, we made mistakes. We alienated people. We did things that did not speak of trustworthiness. Right down at the time, we took helicopters off the roof. We were not trustworthy in terms of dealing with the situation. And I think, you know, we've done this in other countries, too. Our foreign policy and our presidents over many presidential administrations have done things that suggest to people that were not trustworthy. So when Kim Jong-un says, I just want my nuclear bomb, just leave me alone on my nuclear bomb. And I don't want to have economic relations, right? I don't want to be part of a community of nations. I don't want to be part of the APEC 21 or 22, as it would be if he was involved. You know, part of that has to be based on a lack of trust, don't you think, that he's not going to make any headway by having relations with APEC and the American diplomatic community when he doesn't trust them? So what I hear somehow in all of this is that what you're suggesting, what you would like to see is greater trust and an economic relationship with North Korea as a solution to the present, you know, standoffish controversy with North Korea. Am I right? Yeah, exactly. You know, we would like to see the unification with South and North Korea as a one Korea. And if not, at least we would like to keep Kim Jong-un's regime open, but they got to open up. And just like when we had that East and West Berlin with East and West Germany, remember the famous speech that Ronald Reagan did, I dare you, Mr. Govachev, tear this wall down and it starts collapsing. That brought the Eastern Europe and the Western Europe together and brought the Communist regime and the Democratic regime together. And I think it's just a lack of communication. And you know, even the North Koreans, I think maybe the top regime on the Kim Jong-un regime is so up there that, you know, they don't want to deal. But I think in terms of the regular people, they're just afraid of the Kim Jong-un regime. I know they want to just want to probably just walk out and defect their country, but they're so afraid of their retaliation to their family, to their, you know, mothers and father if they leave the country. So, you know, I think... So you think the Trump administration has the possibility of negotiating what I want to call it an economic resolution of this matter and having Kim Jong-un stand down on his weapons building. In return, we could enter into all kinds of trade deals with North Korea and make them wealthy. I mean, that's what I hear you saying. Yeah, definitely. You know, we'd like to see what's the right protocols. We'd like to have the United Nations go there with their arms control, with inspectors, like we did with Iran and other countries, and make sure that their nuclear program is not... You're just going to use it for energy, not to, you know, producing Ukrainian... But the Trump administration is not going there. The Trump administration is going there in Iran. I mean, that's a very tense arrangement with that agreement that Obama made. And certainly he has no great intention or apparently no great intention of making an economic solution with North Korea either. It takes leadership, a really extraordinary leadership because it's extraordinarily complicated. But you think the Trump administration is going to be able to turn around and fashion a deal with North Korea, based on these economic solutions that you're talking about? I think we've got to rely on our international partners on this. Like, you know, we want China, we want Russia, as well, we want Japan to be... And the South Korean themselves got to go out and negotiate their own brothers and sister up in the North. They have their own... Tragic. Yeah, they speak their own language. They know their history and their culture. And so, you know, they got to work together themselves. I think they got to show that. It's interesting that in Vietnam, you know, the U.S. and Britain and France made an artificial boundary between North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel. And it resulted in war. That's what it resulted in, which lasted a long time. Long before the U.S. got actively involved in the Vietnam War, as a matter of fact. I think the trade off... And now in North Korea, you have the same thing, the 38th parallel. It's an artificial boundary between people of like culture, related, family, whatnot. And at the end of the day, it didn't work. It didn't work in terms of reunification or even peace. It created war, and we're still effectively at war between North and South Korea. So how do you resolve that? How do you reunify them? It's pretty hard, because you've got to go back three that generation already, from Kim Jong-un's son to Kim Moon-il, and now Kim Moon-un. So they had all these years of... I don't want to say they're being brainwashed in certain aspects, but they're educated in that faction that the Kim dynasty is like the emperor of God. So the supreme master of all beings. So they live in that kind of context and that kind of environment. So I think it's hard for the westerners to go there and tell them this is the way to do it. He's not buying that. So it's going to be hard to get him on board, hard to get him to trust the West, to trust the United States. But you are going there. I mean, you're building plans for APEC, economic plans for APEC, and building suggesting strategic plans for the U.S. economic relationship with Vietnam. And all that could be a forerunner of the same kind of relationship with North Korea. I hope that happens, actually. And for this, you've been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. What happens now? Sounds like you've got a bunch of people on your side, Russell. Oh, you're right here. I appreciate that. And these people are suggesting that you get the plan, rather the award. What happens? I think there's a selection committee, and you've got to go through an evaluation process. They take the submission, which is a top 20. But there's this act that the Nobel Peace, the foundation, has this 50-year secrecy. So they don't disclose you what your nomination, your criteria was until you're 50 years after. So by the time I know exactly what my number was, if I was a runner-up, or was I on the top 20, or if not in a submission, or how far my evaluation was, I've got to wait until my grandchildren to look at it from 50 years from now. But I'm just giving a sneak preview that this is what I try to do with APEC region, try to bring peace to Asia Pacific, and hopefully tie this in within all the 21 countries, because we want to use economics and business, and bring quality of life to Asia, and the people around there. Because time of war and all that threatening is over already. Oh, war is so destructive. Exactly. It's time to work together and have a harmony. And that's what peace and harmony is all about. So have any competition on this award? Roughly every year, we get around over about 340 or 30 applicants for the Nobel Peace, we're at seven billion people. So just to be nominated as a candidate, I think it's a great honor. And being the world's most prestigious award, and just to be able to, you know, being that kind of, not in that caliber or in that kind of setting, I'm just grateful that I'm lucky that I was nominated as a candidate. Congratulations to you, Russell. And I'm just trying to give back to the community as well. I'm not making any money on this or anything. I'm just doing it because, you know, I want to bring peace to the region. And if I can contribute in some ways of coming up with the logistic of a master plan or some of the strategic business that I was able to learn and comprehend, I'd like to pass my knowledge on and somebody else can pick up on it. And maybe the leaders themselves can realize and, you know, trickle down to their subordinates. And you're not done. You're going to keep on doing this, aren't you? Well, hopefully if I don't get burnt out pretty soon. But, you know, this kind of foreign policy and business economic development stuff, you've got to be on top of it. You've got to understand the culture, the dynamics of Asia Pacific. Each country is different. Each country speaks different language. Each country has different cultures and values and religion. Well, good luck, Russell. I hope you get it. Is there anybody I can write to to back you up on this? I don't know. I guess the announcement's coming in October 2nd. And October 6th is the peace lottery. And so hopefully if we don't win this year, the APEC organization doesn't win this year. Because I said to myself, when it was the individual, I wanted to pass it on as an APEC organization. Because what happened was here in 2012, the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize lottery. So I was just saying at the 28 countries the European Union has and APEC region has 21 countries. And if we bring peace to Asia Pacific region and everybody in the APEC organization, the countries are working so hard and cooperating, working together, sharing information, being transparent. So I think the organization is well deserving. I hope the APEC organization wins the APEC. I mean, the Nobel Peace Prize this year. That's Russell Hanna. He's a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize based on his work with APEC. And he's the U.S. senior official for APEC in Hawaii. Thank you so much, Russell. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Jay.