 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is Trump's Asia Policy and my guest is Mr. Sean King, Senior Vice President of Park Strategies, a New York City international consulting firm headed up by former US Senator Al DeMato. Sean, hi. Welcome back to Asian Review. It's good to have you back with us again. Great. Good to be with you again. Good. Well, let's jump right into it because we've got a lot to talk about here. I mean, you know, the last few weeks have been really pretty active in Asia. Is the US losing in East Asia? Is it losing traction? Is China sowing ahead? Where are we? We're not gaining any ground right now. We're treading water, falling back a little bit. It could be much worse if we don't keep our eyes open. And some of it is not our fault. I think a big blow to US Asia policy happened last year when Rodrigo Duterte became President of the Philippines. Because as far as the South China Sea is concerned, among the five claimants, the Philippines is our only treaty ally. So they sort of host us in that debate. And right now, we're not sure whether Duterte really wants to follow through on keeping his peace of it against Beijing. So without his enthusiasm, we sort of don't have a seat at the table. So that's thrown a lot of our Southeast Asia South China Sea policy into disarray. But I was very happy to hear that President Trump announced over the weekend that he's going to attend the ASEAN summit in Manila in November and also APEC in Vietnam. And, you know, Duterte and Obama got off on the wrong foot and there was some real personal vitriol there. I think Trump and Duterte are going to get along very well. And if there's one person who can talk Duterte in, off the ledges it were, I think it could be Trump. But we've also had some self-inflicted wounds. I think withdrawing from TPP was a tremendous setback for U.S. economic influence in Asia. Basically, open the door for China to move in. Although its rival ARSA program cannot match TPP, it still suggests to our friends and allies in Asia that we're not there for the long haul. And just some of the other tones we've set, you know, berating Korea on renegotiating the chorus FTA, the hostile phone call with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Australia, threatening to revoke the one China policy, but then climbing down and reading off Chinese talking points on the phone to Xi Jinping. These are things that I think that upset a lot of our friends and allies in the region. Okay, let's hold up there and just backtrack with just a bit here. So now the U.S. and the Philippines have been quite close for years and years and years. Is there really fundamental change here? I mean, when Duterte is, after his term in office is back out, done, will U.S.-Filipino relations snap back to the way they've traditionally been? Depends on what happens in the meantime. You know, he has cemented his flirtation with China and Russia in the meantime and depending on what happens in Washington and or how much, under how much more Chinese control the Scarborough Shoal is and what other claimants do after Manila won the Hague ruling but then doesn't want to fully prosecute it. I don't know. I don't know how long Duterte is going to be in office. I don't know who's going to be in office here or what damage will have been done. But the Filipino people in military love the U.S. Okay, well, let's backtrack again a little bit. Where is the pivot right now? Where is the rebalance? And maybe we've answered this already, but we want to make sure we hit on this because, I mean, this is what the U.S. policy is supposed to be predicated on. Yeah, I think it's kind of on hold. On hold and dialed down a bit, especially with pulling out a TPP. You know, the Wall Street Journal, no friend of Democrats in its op-ed, the Saturday after Election Day, I think, said, I was on a flight back from Tokyo reading it, and it advised Trump that Asia is the one part of the world that Obama got right. Instead of reversing the pivot, double down on it. But right now I think it's on hold because the current administration tends to see relationships with countries as binary transactions as opposed to the big picture. So when he's dealing with Japan on a certain thing, he's thinking U.S.-Japan, but not thinking necessarily of Japan and Korea getting closer together. Japan acting as our emissary in Myanmar as it moves away from dictatorship. I just don't know if the big picture is there right now with the new administration. Well, this is really interesting what you say about binary relationships. Some people have advocated and Trump himself has advocated, okay, we're out of TPP, but we're going to negotiate bilateral trade agreements and bilateral investment agreements, and they'll take the place of TPP. Now you're a trade guy. You spent lots of time several years in the Department of Commerce working on international trade issues. Can bilateral trade agreements, can bilateral investment agreements take the place of TPP? No. They'd be poor man's TPPs at best. We already have bilateral trade agreements with six of the 11 TPP partners. And negotiating one-on-one, one-on-one, like in the case of Japan, just brings us back to the same issues that we've been debating since the 1980s. And a lot of countries are reticent to give things to us straight up, but if they can be hidden in a multilateral agreement that it's not a question of America moving in on their turf and it's easier to sell it home politically, especially if it's part of a collective economic defense against Chinese influence in Asia, which is not how TPP started, but it's certainly how it ended up. So no, I don't think bilateral, if they can get past it all, assuming we even have the time bandwidth and staff to follow through on them, because the opening Japanese salvo didn't seem to get too far with Tauraso, it still collectively cannot match TPP's benefit. Good answer, good answer. Okay, well, there's the argument. Where's the real focus of US foreign policy being? And let's just push Europe to the side here. Are we too vested in the Middle East? And should we give more attention to Asia? Where should the balance be? What's the importance of the Middle East compared to the importance of East Asia? As an Asia guy, I have to say the Middle East is hugely important and maybe more so only because in the Middle East our adversaries want to kill us, where in Asia right now our adversaries just want to wear us down and get rid of us and hopefully push us out of Asia. You know, North Korea wants us to think they're going to nuke us, but they don't want to because they're not religious fanatics, even though the Kim regime has religious like overtones. The thing is they enjoy the fruits of this world and they want to live. They don't want to die. But some of our adversaries in the Middle East are happy to die. And I think there in that case the Middle East in terms of absolute life and death is probably a greater threat. But you can't separate the two. Remember when Israel destroyed that Syrian nuclear reactor, they found North Korean parts inside. And if Iran is patient and waits for the bomb in 10 to 15 years, they'll probably be trying to mount it on Israeli, on North Korean missiles to hit Israel. So you can't separate the two. But in terms of an immediate threat to U.S. life and death that could come onto U.S. shores, the Middle East is probably a greater threat right now. I think that's where Trump's chief interests lie and I wouldn't blame him for spending a little more attention on it. But don't take your eye off Asia. Is Jared Kushner up to handling Middle Eastern affairs? I will defer to the president. I've never met Mr. Kushner. He seems like a smart guy. Let's give him a chance and see what he can do. I don't know enough about the Middle East to judge his capability. So I'll wait to be impressed. What if the U.S. just packed it all up and left the Middle East? What would the consequences be as you see it? Yeah, again, I'm not a Middle East expert, but I think if we did, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, our other friends in the region would be terribly concerned and I think Iran would fill the vacuum. I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. Okay, well, I don't know if you've seen this week's issue of the economists. I'm going to hold this up here for our audience. I just got it in the mail today. Handle with extreme care, and there's a picture of your friendly dictator in Pyongyang, Mr. Kim Jong-un. And I think that provides us a good segue. How should we handle North Korea? I think we have to be tough, but we don't have to necessarily take the bait and provoke ourselves. I really think a preemptive strike is off the table. We would win, ultimately, any war with North Korea, but the cost to South Korean life would be so great. We're looking at hundreds, thousands of deaths in the greater Seoul area, which is only 30 miles from the DMZ. And as we saw from the Kim Jong-un killing in Malaysia, they could use VX nerve gas, too. So God knows what that could mean. So we want to avoid any kind of preemptive action at all costs. What I would really like to see as a next step, and I'm a little disappointed the president hasn't already done this, but I guess he's given Xi Jinping some time to impress him, is secondary sanctions on China, because North Korea itself is pretty much sanctioned out. But it's moved from what I understand from the recent UNWeb panel of experts report, is it's moved its weapons procurement business inside China, and is using Chinese banks' access to the U.S. dollar system and other names of companies to procure weapons. So we have to go after the Chinese entities and banks that North Korea is using as fronts for its weapons programs and existence. Do you think the strategy right now is by marshalling all these, you know, arms, like the Carl Vinson carrier strike group and other weapons? You know, Chinese bombers supposedly flying up and down the border between North Korea and China. Do you think there's a strategy to just put a lot of pressure on Kim Jong-un to the point where maybe it induces someone to rise up against him and get rid of him? Well, you know, our carriers there, again, I don't know what's going on in the administration's head. I assume they know what they're doing. That could be as much aimed at China as it is at North Korea. And it's very interesting what China was doing with bombers on its. Is it worried about, is it trying to let North Korea know that something could happen or are they worried about us? I'm not sure. I think it's important to show resolve, especially with North Korea sending the signs that they can. But I don't see a Chinese solution to North Korea, per se. You know, there's a perfectly able South Korean state that's twice the size of North Korea, much richer to the South without the Kim cult and the Kim regime and North Korea open up. North Korea has very little reason to exist as a separate state. So this well-intentioned theory I've heard about a Chinese managed separate North Korea, that might work for a few years. But after that, I don't see why North Koreans would want a state separate from the South. And unification would be inevitable, which is China's worst fear. You know, unification is a very interesting issue. I mean, do the Japanese really want to unify Korea? Does China really want to unify Korea? Who really wants to unify Korea, perhaps other than the South Koreans? And some of them are very skeptical as well, because they think it would be just too much of a cost and too burdensome. People, well, the people who want, I think they say that now. But when it comes down to it, I think Koreans' desire to be together will trump no pun intended. Fears of cost. The only people who are really resolute for unification are North Koreans. Now, of course, the regime wants that under the Kim regime, but most North Koreans are very patriotic. Remember, the Kim regime is an ultra-nationalist regime that says it is the legitimate government of all Korea. It says South Korea is a puppet colony state, and that we invaded them and they repelled us, all this stuff. I think Japan would want it because Japan sees North Korea as an existential threat to itself. It would also get the abductees back, which is an understandably emotive issue for Japanese. I think China is very concerned about a Korean unification because they look at the German example and they see a U.S. ally on its land border without getting anything in return. And also, you know, these people in Pyongyang and Ham Hong and wherever else, they would all of a sudden be voting in all Korean elections. Meanwhile, people in Shanghai with Harvard MBA still can't even vote for mayor, so how would they explain that to their own people? That's a very interesting point. Bill, if I could just say, using the German example, one thing we could sort of sell China on about unification is that we could say, while U.S. troops would remain in the South, they would not go north of the 38th parallel, just like we never put troops in the former East Germany as a way to get Gorbachev's spy on a German unification. Okay, we have about one minute until break, so let's see what else we can get in before then. Okay, you know, I'm really skeptical about, we'll probably have to continue the answer to this question after the break, but I'm really skeptical about China not accepting co-imports from North Korea because, as you and I were talking about before the show, China has a number of mines leased in North Korea. It has a total Northeast section of North Korea leased out. And it depends on resources coming from those areas for its industries. And the other thing is that I think that the North Koreans have a bit of a trump card, again, no pun intended, in that the three Northeastern provinces in China depend on North Korean ports to export their goods because they're all landmines. So, I think that in actuality, the North Koreans have some leverage and I always think the North Koreans are very good at playing the Chinese. The North Koreans, they're not stupid. They're very cunning. They're very strategic. Very rational. Evil but rational. Evil but rational. I think we're going to leave it there. We'll come back to this after the break and certainly we'll continue it. So, you are watching Asia in Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today is Mr. Sean Kim, Senior Vice President of Parks Strategies based in New York City. And we'll be right back. Aloha. This is your host, Beatrice Contelmo. Okay. Come and join us every Friday at four o'clock on Perspectives of Global Justice. Okay. Camera one. Aloha, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Pauline Shuckmark-Chen. I'm the host for a new show on Think Tech Hawaii called Outside In. Okay. Outside In. Camera one is that kind of little camera on the tripod. It can help shape Hawaii's future. And I will be starting the show hopefully next year in terms of regularly scheduled programming. And we hope to invite a wide variety of different guests ranging from history, philosophy, art and architectural fields all the way to robotics, biotech, cryptocurrency. Okay. Super. Bitcoin and the like. So we're going to have a full range of guests to cover many different areas of interest. And I hope to see you next year. Until then, Aloha. Welcome back to Asia in Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today is Mr. Sean King, Senior Vice President of Parks Strategies in New York City. Our show today, Trump's Asia Policy. And we've been discussing a host of issues dealing with the pivot or rebalance, depending on your favor, to Asia. And just before the break, we're getting into some pretty substantive discussion about North Korea. I think we want to go back and pick that up there, because certainly North Korea is on everybody's minds, especially for those of us sitting here in Hawaii, where it is increasingly said that we're in the range, within the range of North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missiles. So Sean, what do you think? Do you think that... I'll go a step further here. I don't really trust China, because China always sort of says one thing, but it always comes to North Korea's side, ultimately. When Wenzhou Bao was premier, there were a number of U.N. resolutions passed against North Korea. China didn't abstain. It voted to support those resolutions. About a week later, Wenzhou Bao went to Pyongyang and said to everybody, what do you guys need? What do you guys need? Just tell us. We'll give it to you. So I'm really skeptical. And I think that perhaps China would like the U.S. to clean up this whole mess, because without lifting much of a finger itself. And I think that's a Chinese style. Let the Americans do it. Excuse me, the foreigners do it. And we'll just sort of sit back and look good. Well, you know, there's a lot of bad blood between China and North Korea, because the Korean War cost China a lot of blood and treasure, probably when you think about it, also cost to Taiwan. But China would rather manage this chronic situation as opposed to resolve it, because a divided Korea suits it more than a united Korea would. And on the coal imports from North Korea, you know, Victor Cha pointed out that when China so self-righteously and self-aggrandizingly called an end to the coal imports, it had almost reached its quota for 2017 anyway. And, you know, there are all sorts of other... That budget is my point. Yeah, and there's all sorts of other business going on. 90% of North Korean trade is with China. And as you mentioned, the rare earth in the eastern part of North Korea has a big hard currency earners for the Kim regime. Now, if they had let Australian miners in or Europeans in, they could even earn more in hard currency. But then they would have to be letting in foreigners who may proselytize news of the outside world to locals. So they let the Chinese miners in on the condition that they don't talk to any of the locals and let in the outside world. So the North Koreans are actually underselling themselves on their rare earth exports, but it's a big source of rare earth for China. So the coal is very cosmetic at best in terms of a sanction. There's really a lot more business going on between China and North Korea. And China is North Korea's lifeline for better or for worse. You can also say that the trade is... I think we'll continue to go on. It's going on between private traders, private North Korean traders, private Chinese traders, and not state trade. But the government of China supposedly can control state trade from big state companies. But what its inclination is to control private trade remains to be seen. And a lot of the relations between China and North Korea are not between the governments anyway. They're between the Communist Party, which is a way, again, the state to distance itself from what happens. Often a lot of the interaction between Pyongyang is through Communist Party bosses on either side, and that's a way for the government to say, oh, you know, we weren't involved in that. You also mentioned the Eastern provinces of Northeastern China. You know, a lot of ethnic Koreans have moved in there since the Korean War. And there are formerly Korean territories in there. United Korea would probably want some of that territory back from China. And China always pulls out this red herring saying they don't want to collapse North Korea, because it would mean refugees streaming across their border. First of all, the entire population of North Korea, 24 million people, equals that of Metro Shanghai. A nation of 1.3 billion can easily handle 24 million people, even if they went over to China. But in the event of a North Korean collapse, why would North Koreans go to China? They would go to South Korea. It's like saying that when the Berlin Wall opened, East Germans would go to Czechoslovakia. No, they went to West Germany. I see a day when ethnic Koreans in Northeastern China leave what is today China to go back home to Korea. So I think that's a complete red herring that China pulls out just to put off its day of reckoning with the Korean issue. That's a good point. That's a very interesting point. Why don't you think about that one for a second? Because as you're suggesting, it's a concern that China often raises. And too many people who should know better just take it at face value without drilling down and saying, well, then why didn't East Germans go to Poland or Czechoslovakia or the Berlin Wall opened? Somebody has to call China out on that argument. Well, in that pamphlet that Ralph Kosa wrote, and we both read, he also makes the point that China nowadays is much more concerned about North Korea's weapons development program because it's fearful that the Japanese will want to develop nuclear weapons. North Koreans will want to develop nuclear weapons. Do you see any credit to that line of argument? I see some of it. They're concerned. They would rather North Korea not have the nukes, but for now they can live with it because they know the nukes are not aimed at them. And I think that's why they're trying to manage it so that to manage some of North Korea's excesses to calm down calls for nukes in those other countries, which I don't think will happen, especially Japan with its own experience with nuclear weapons. I don't think that will happen either. And I think the U.S. will put a lot of pressure on South Korea not to develop nuclear weapons. Yeah, and we pulled out our tactical nukes from North Korea in 1991. I mean, look at all the uproar in Japan just over reinterpreting Article 9. Imagine them going nuclear. I just don't see it happening. But I think China is just trying to manage this chronic situation, and they know the nukes are not aimed at them. But, you know, they should also know well enough the experience Korean hands in the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the regime is tied up in the nuclear issue now, that the Kim regime cannot live without the nukes, because without that they climb down from their legitimacy. Remember, the nukes are now in the North Korean Constitution, and they see that as their only way to guard against regime change and also as a gun to our head so that we will enter into bilateral negotiations with them without them having to go through Seoul. And, you know, this bogus peace treaty, a precondition for which would be the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea, which again leaves the South open for invasion. I know that sounds far-fetched, but I think that is the North Korean dream agreement at least in the meantime. They want the U.S. troops out of South Korea. Um, regime change versus regime behavior. I don't think you can have it. I don't see why that's really likely to happen. I'm skeptical about changing regime behavior as well. What about you? Yeah, you can't change the regime behavior. I mean, depending on which declassified Soviet archives you read, North Korea has been trying to get nukes since the late 50s. And certainly, remember, they resist all foreign influence, even from their supposed friends. They've written China's rescue of it in the Korean War out of North Korean history textbooks now. Kim Il-sung would have seen what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis and he would have thought that cruise ships sold out Castro. And that was probably the final thing that he needed, his own nukes, his own deterrent, and his own security. So they're not going to change their behavior. They can't. There's too much invested in it. And really the only way to change the regime is to bankrupt it. And who has 90% of their trade? China. So until China cuts them off economically, I think we're stuck. Everybody in Washington always screams China, China, China. But then again, sometimes I just don't know what China really has all that much influence in North Korea. I don't think they can call up certain people and tell them what to do because like I said, North Korea resists all foreign influence, even from friends. They cannot tell them what to do, but they can cut them off and then cause them to go out of business. I think that's really the only way out of this. As my friend George Lopez at Notre Dame says, bankrupt the regime. Right. And of course, on the other hand, the North Koreans are really tough. They can live with a lot of sanctions. They can live with a lot of agony, pain that probably most other people can't tolerate, be they Asians or Westerners. What do you think about the... Kim Jong-un was whacked, what is it, a month ago in Malaysia. And do you think it was really possible that the Chinese had some plan in mind to set him up in power in Pyongyang? If the Chinese are honest with themselves, I don't think how they could think that would go over. I mean, he was damaged goods. And that would basically be an affront to the Kim regime as it is. I think maybe there could have been some Chinese officials with a fantasy toward that, but I don't see that as a practical plan now. It always struck me as interesting. It's sort of like the Japanese during World War II set up Puyi as the so-called puppet emperor of Manchukoku, as they call it. Right. And setting up Kim Jong-un as the president of North Korea would be sort of a reverse Puyi act on the behalf of China. So they probably would have had him in Beijing full-time then, not in Macau, or a place where he could be taken out more easily. Well, we're down to about our last minute here, and we want to squeeze in something real quick here. Obama, did he deserve to be remembered as the Pacific president? As a Pacific president, let's see what Trump does before we say Obama's the Pacific president. Obviously, born in Hawaii, I think great. As a Republican, I have to say a great legacy on Asian issues. I could go on and on about all he did in Asia. Really governed from the right when it came to Asia policy. Really came around on trade and a lot of other issues. I hope Trump keeps it going, the good parts of it. So let's hope Trump is another great Pacific president as Obama was. But right now, I think Obama is definitely a good one. Great. Great answer. Well, thank you for joining us. It's just when it really gets good, the clock tells us it's time to end. So thank you to Mr. King for joining us, and thank you for watching. My guest next week will be Ms. Lily Ong. She is the owner of the Hawaii Chinese Immersion School. And one final note, all 2017 episodes of Asia Review can be seen by going to asianimreview.net. That is asianimreview.net. See you next week. Hey, Sean. Namaste. We're covered on the ground. Thank you. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Very good. Thank you. So the way this works now, we've got some changes since you allowed us on, is in about, I'm going to say two hours to be safe, you should get an email from the staff here thanking you and also with the link to the shoot. Great. So you'll be able to see it. And the next couple of days, I'll put it on asianimreview.net, which is my new blog. And I also put