 Good morning, everybody. Good morning. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here at U.S. Institute of Peace, and I'm delighted to welcome everyone, early morning folks, here today. USIP, for those who are here for the first time, was founded by Congress in 1984, dedicated to the proposition that peace was a very practical undertaking, that it was very, very possible, and was absolutely essential for our national and our international security. So USIP works around the world with partners, looking at the best research tools, training, and practical ways to prevent and resolve violent conflict. And I'm delighted everybody could join us this morning for a very timely and important conversation that will look at the past, the present, and the relationship between China and North Korea. And the recent flurry of diplomatic activity in the region reflects both the increasing urgency of this crisis and the continuing hope that we might collectively be able to resolve a conflict that has been simmering for more than half a century. International attention, of course, has been very focused on the upcoming Inner Korean Summit on April 27th, as well as the potential for a US-North Korea meeting to be scheduled sometime in May or June. But of course, before these summit meetings could take place, we saw the recent visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un going to Beijing for his first trip as leader to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And the visit was a surprise to many, given that the bilateral relations between China and North Korea have been strained since Kim assumed power. And after the Trump-Kim summit was announced last month, we saw the increased feeling among many in China that that might leave China marginalized. So today, with Kim and Xi having taken steps to reinvigorate the historic bonds between China and North Korea, perhaps the recent bilateral tensions have eased and the two countries seem to once again be exploring ways to enhance their relationship. So today's conference is an opportunity for scholars, practitioners, diplomats, military to come together and explore the dynamics and tensions of the historical relationship between China and North Korea, as well as China's views on potential reunification of the Korean Peninsula, the future of what a reunified Korea might look like, and also the possible role of China were there to be limited military conflict on the peninsula. So we have a terrific lineup of speakers today, including a lunchtime keynote speech by former South Korean ambassador, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert. So be sure to stay around for that. And we are, of course, particularly delighted to be partnering with Georgetown University in what is now our fifth annual exploration of these topics together. And this is made possible by the generosity of the Building Asian Security Studies Fund. So finally, I want to welcome those of you who are watching today via livestream. I invite you to follow USIP on Twitter and to participate in today's conversation using the hashtag China GUUSIP. So it is now my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Thomas Banchoff, who's the vice president for global engagement at Georgetown University. And please join me in welcoming him as he also adds his welcoming remarks and, once again, appreciation for the wonderful partnership. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. First off, thank you, Nancy, for those introductory framing remarks and for this partnership between Georgetown and USIP. As Nancy mentioned, I'm here just to provide some brief introductory remarks and to really welcome you on behalf of Georgetown or entire community to this impressive conference on China and North Korea past, present, and future. I want to acknowledge and congratulate my colleague, Oriana Mastrow, and our team at the Center for Security Studies, as well as our colleagues here at USIP for putting together such an excellent program today. And like Nancy, I'd also like to acknowledge the Philip and Patricia Bilden Asian Security Studies Fund for its support in making this conference possible. I think it's fitting that Georgetown and USIP should again collaborate on a conference like this one, where neighbors were both in the education business broadly defined and very important were committed to building a more peaceful world. In the case of Georgetown, this commitment has religious roots in our Catholic and Jesuit identity in the Catholic social teaching on social justice, war, and peace. It's a commitment that animates our Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, which was founded in 1919 and will be celebrating its centenary next year. As many of you know, over the past several decades, the SFS, as we call it, has been an incubator for dynamic programs, including the Center for Security Studies, which addresses pressing global security challenges through research, teaching, and outreach. Now, among those challenges, of course, is the US-China relationship. I think you'll agree, the most important bilateral relationship of our contemporary global era. USIP is an acknowledged leader in the exploration of our ties with China on many levels. And in 2016, Georgetown inaugurated a university-wide initiative for dialogue, US-China dialogue on global issues, and Dennis Wilder, the managing director of that initiative, will be leading our first panel. Today, as Nancy mentioned, our agenda is the complex relationship between China and North Korea. It's a relationship with far-reaching implications for Asian security, and because it involves a nuclear question for US foreign policy, and I would add US domestic politics. It's a relationship for many of us, not all perhaps, but for many of us shrouded in mystery with complex economic, political, and security dimensions. Today, we've got several expert panels and a lunchtime keynote that will help us to lift the veil, at least a little bit, to demystify the main contours of the China-North Korea relationship, its past, present, and future. And I want to add in the spirit of this partnership and this gathering that our goal is not simply academic insight, but an extended dialogue here on stage and with you all about the different courses of action, action, open to the United States and other countries around the world, a dialogue about which courses of action should be pursued in practice in the interest of peace and security in Asia and indeed on a global scale. So in conclusion, I again want to congratulate the organizers for putting together such a rich program. Georgetown is delighted to be engaged here on this occasion, on this wonderful program, and to be collaborating again with USIP. So thanks again for being here and please join me in welcoming Dennis Wilder and the first panel to the stage. Good morning, everyone. My name is Professor Dennis Wilder. I am with the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown in the Asian Studies program as well as being managing director of our China initiative at the university. I am really pleased to be with this distinguished group of academics on stage. This is a real treat and you're going to get your money's worth this morning because we in Washington tend to see the usual suspects at every single conference we go to and I'm sure some of you who go to those conferences can name those names. Today, though, we're bringing in people from outside of the system, if you will, in Washington, people who've really done scholarly work, deep scholarly work and so I think this is a real opportunity to get an education in the history of China and North Korean relations. So when we say we're going to study the past today, I really mean we're going to study the past. Dr. Shu, Stella Shu, will be talking about ancient history. She will be talking about the ancient parts of this relationship and let me just give you a few words on her background. She received her PhD from UCLA. Her recent book is Reconstructing Ancient Korean History, the Formation of Koreanness in the Shadow of History. She has received a recent fellowship award and she's going to be taking six students to South Korea in May on a very fascinating research project on strangers in their imagined motherland North Korean refugees in South Korea. Her talk today is going to really look at the historical perceptions intertwined with the formation of national identity. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Stella and then I'll introduce the other speakers as they have a chance to talk. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. First, I would like to thank Dr. Maestro and the USIP Georgetown to organize this wonderful conference and thank you very much to help me here and thank you for one for introduction. Okay, so it was in late February I was first informed of this conference. Since then, we have witnessed a series of dramatic development in East Asia, including a possible Trump Kim summit meeting in May and a sudden visit of Kim Jong-un to China. Today, I still cannot stop wondering what will be other or next dramatic events in May and June. I will take a group of students to do field research in South Korea in May. An interesting anecdote is that it was last for August that my students and I are putting together an application for the Freeman Research Grant. But when it get to October, the situation getting so bad that I have to ask my students to ask their parents if they are okay to have their children to go to South Korea. Now, I'm so thrilled. Not only we were awarded this prestigious fellowship, but more importantly, we could have a chance to witness some very historical moments in South Korea. And these are the things, of course, all of us may not even imagine just a few months ago. Relation between North Korea and China had been complicated, but it became even harder to make a sense in the past 10 years. During the nuclear crisis, most countries and the people outside of North Korea have thought that China could and should have sufficient leverage to that North Korea comply. When it turned out that China didn't and could not, people felt puzzled and frustrated. As a historian, I would like to see the past events not in five or 10 years time frame, but in a much longer and bigger concept. The contemporary issues between North Korea and China could make more sense if we step back just a little bit and look at the contemporary issues from a historical perspective. More than any other regions, East Asian people and that they care about history. We can say first of all, all countries in East Asia, China, Japan, Korea, they made formal and informal historical records from thousands of years ago. And the second, whenever something happened today, historians, politicians, and also intellectuals, they look back to the history and they want to try to find some similar circumstances and presidents and they want to use them as for the inspiration and the reference for what's going on today. So it will be very helpful to understand the principle of North Korean foreign policy if we take a look at how they view history and not only for very recent present, but also for pre-modern period. Interestingly, I would argue the most similar situation in international relations in East Asia today parallels East Asia in the 7th century, oh, thousands of years ago. The 7th century can be named as a period of chaos because it witnessed the first international war in East Asia. There were three kingdoms in the Korean peninsula competing for superiority and unification. The most unlikely winner, Shin-La, eventually unified Korea through an alliance with the Tang Dynasty, China. The period has been one of the most controversial faces in Korean history, in Korean historiography. There is a huge gap between North and South Korean historians about how to see this period. Historical research is not only important for the formation of nation-state and national identity in modern period, but also for asserting political legitimacy in the age of South and North division. South Korean historians consider this is the first unification of Korea and it is this first unified Shin-La that laid foundation for Korean indigenous culture. In contrast, North Korean historians denied this is a real unification because Shin-La failed to incorporate all former territories of Gogurye Kingdom and more importantly, Shin-La didn't achieve unification by themselves but by soliciting help from China. Shin-La invented an external enemy to a fraternal fight among three Korean kingdoms. Shin-La was deceptive and despicable. Therefore, Shin-La's unification is neither the first nor a real one. Moreover, Shin-La only annexed about two thirds of the Korean peninsula and surrendered a large portion of Gogurye territory to China. So if you look at these slides, you will see a very interesting alliance among different political polity in the 7th century Korea. So Gogurye actually allied with Baek-Jae and slightly with Turks. Baek-Jae allied with Japan. So the other side is Shin-La allied with Tang China. To make this more relevant to today's international relation, North Korean historians content that South Korea is equivalent of Shin-La, allied with the United States, just like China in the 7th century. As North Korea is like Gogurye, who would never surrender to a superpower. Hence, it is Gogurye that maintained Korean traditional value and they lamented that it should have been Gogurye that unified Korea in the 7th century. It further justifies that it should be North Korea who unified Korea in the future. This also explains complexity of North Korean foreign policy toward China. There were at least two large scale invasions from China attempting to annex Korea peninsula to Chinese empire. The first one was during the Han period, Emperor Han Wudi of the Han dynasty, and the second is during the Sui and the Tang period. Both actually were successful from China's end. Emperor Wudi instilled four Chinese commanders in Northern Korean peninsula and the Tang was able to crush Gogurye kingdom. Since then, Korea had been a long time exemplary tributary state to China. China was happy to be a nominal suitoring over Korea and Korea had enjoyed free independence in their domestic issues. Korea often turned to China for help when never needed. However, Korea also need to be extra careful for not being annexed to China. Still in a way, we would say Korea had been very successful to survive and thrive by securing China's protection without sacrificing Korea's independence. It should also be noted that there would be hundreds of other political and ethnic groups bordered with China in the past 2,000 years, but only very few had survived and others either disappeared without much trace left behind or merged into Chinese. This is what had happened after the unification war in Korea and this is how the North Korean historians lamented that a large portion of the Gogurye kingdom become the Bahia kingdom and eventually become part of China. The political reliance on China and tributary system and the cultural influence from China had rather become huge barrier when North Korea tried to strengthen their self-reliance ideology in the 1970s. North Koreans historians spared no effort proving Korea's self-reliance as early as possible and they initiated multi-founded effort to reconstruct a long, glorious, prosperous and independent history of Korea traced as far back as possible. It started from transforming Dangun, a mythical legendary figure into a real historical figure and common ancestor for all Koreans. They claimed that they rediscovered Dangun tomb in 1993 and the human remains excavated there were attributed to Dangun and his wife. They also constructed a massive mausoleum at the site of Dangun tomb by underscoring the importance of Pyongyang and Northern Korea as the home place of Korea's common ancestor, Dangun. North Korea can secure political legitimacy over South Korea and North Korea is destined to take the lead for future unification. They want a stepfather to claim a new center of ancient civilization, the Daedonggang civilization as the fifth center other than ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China which they claim that is even older than other civilizations. The mixed feelings about China and the Sino-Korean relations played an important role in shaping their foreign policy with China. During the Kim Il-sung era, the overall relationship between China and North Korea had been supportive to each other. North Korea took sides with China in almost all international policies. There had been some tough time when North Korea was forced to pick a side between Soviet Union and China but overall North Korea was successful in obtaining political and economic support from both countries without irritating China or Soviet Union. Leaders in China also took friendship with North Korea very seriously and both sides took great effort in putting aside disputes and focused more on common interests. The biggest challenge only occurred in 1992, the last phase of Kim Il-sung era when China finally decided to officially establish diplomatic relations with South Korea. Kim Jong-il continued his father's policy and maintained the pre-existing network with Chinese Communist Party leaders. Despite his unprecedented effort in improving North Korea's self-reliance, which made North Korea more obsessed with developing nuclear weapons, different from Kim Jong-il who co-route with his father for over 20 years until he finally assumed sole leadership, Kim Jong-un did not have sufficient time to cultivate his leadership under his father's protection. Kim Jong-un is also far more interested in a fully independent North Korea, which made him invested more in nuclear weapons. He also has no pre-existing personal ties with China, especially after he allegedly executed his uncle, Jang Seung-taek. To summarize, North Korea needs to maintain a delicate relation with China, neither too close nor too hostile. In comparable size of China versus Korea and at least two large-scale invasions from China aiming to annex Korea had been a serious historical lesson. Later, both China and Korea were contended with a tributary system as Korea need to acknowledge China's superiority and China leave Korea alone for their domestic issues. The dynamics of North Korea and China's relation during the past seven decades can be better understood if we look more into history. China is geopolitically too important for North Korea. North Korea needs economic and security support from China, but ironically and paradoxically China is also the biggest barrier for North Korea's self-reliance ideology. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were closer to China while Kim Jong-un started with a drastic departure from the past. The recent sudden visit to China in March for mending the strained China-North Korea relation and the recent North Korea-state propaganda emphasizing historical friendship with China as if nothing had ever changed in between indicate a cautious adjustment yet far from a complete return to over-reliance on China. Thank you. Well done. First, I want to congratulate Dr. Xu. She told me her presentation would be 12 minutes. In length, it was. She's setting the example for the rest of today. I hope our other panelists can take a lesson from that. I've got a lot of questions. I'd like to ask her, but we're going to move on to the other panelists and then take questions at the end. So our next panelist is Dr. Xia, who is a professor of history at Long Island University, but he is also a senior research fellow at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is a former Wilson Center scholar, author of many books. In fact, he doesn't have just one book but two books coming out this year. The one he wanted me to highlight for you because it's relevant to this conference is a misunderstood friendship, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino-North Korean relations, 1949 to 1976. This is coming out in August from Columbia University Press. He has another book also coming out this year in September on Mao and the Sino-Soviet split, 1959 to 1973. So I think you can see that this is a man who has studied history and has a lot to tell us. Dr. Xia. Thank you very much, Dr. Wider. And also, I'm very much appreciate the opportunity for the invitation from USIP and also Georgetown University for inviting me here to speak. Professor Xu just did a very good job in talking about the history of China's relations with North, with Korea from 7th century to the present now in 12 minutes. I can't do that. I will try to talk about folks, my talk on the time period of China's relations with North Korea during the Cold War, especially during the time Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung, as we all know, is the grandpa of the current leader of North Korea. So my talk, the title of my talk is Sino-North Korea Special Relations Reconsidered, or the so-called Sino-North Korea Relationship. So the Chinese and the North Koreans, they have invented a few very nice words and expressions to describe their relationship, such as China and North Korea as clothes and lips to tease. They have broadening affection toward each other. They shared will and war throughout history. Their relationship was forged with fresh blood and tested in war. Sino-North Korea Relationship is a militant friendship. But we know now from Professor Xu's remarks that the relationship actually is very complicated. The Koreans always have mixed feelings toward the Chinese. So, even when, as we all know, that in the past few years, the relationship was very bad. The relationship since Kim Jong-un took over power in North Korea, the relationship was very bad, deteriorated. In China, some of the Chinese policy makers and scholars, they are actually talking about China should abandon North Korea. But even when the relationship deteriorated during the period of Kim Jong-un, North Korea, surprisingly, North Korea made efforts to prevent its relationship with China as a special, extraordinary, revolutionary relationship. For example, in October 2013, on the occasion of the 63rd anniversary of China's entry into the Korean War, North Korea publicly acknowledged the contribution of Chinese people's volunteer army to the Korean War, which North Korea did not say publicly before. So why at this particular point, when the relationship was deteriorating, it's almost go to public. On the other hand, we saw North Korea media, the publicly acknowledged China's contribution to the Korean War. On the Chinese side, we know that Xi Jinping, he didn't like North Korea, Chinese officials also sometimes strongly condemned North Korea nuclear provocation. But on the other hand, at the public occasion, for example, the Chinese foreign minister, at the third plenium of the 12th National People's Congress press conference on March 8, 2015, in response to a question Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi claimed, China and North Korea are friendly neighbors. Chinese people keep face and value ties of friendship. We trade your sign of North Korea traditional friendship and are devoted to develop a moral relation between our two countries. And in the recent meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Kim actually told Xi Jinping the friendship between the DPRK and China that was personally created and nurtured together by former generation of the leaders from both sides is unshakeable. She went out of his way to recall the warm friendship between his father, Xi Zhongxun and Mr. Kim's father, Mr. Kim's father, Kim Jong-un. It seems that Lyside is shy of playing the friendship car even when the relation is tense. Now the Chinese Xinhua news agency statement of Xi-Kim meeting emphasized tradition, longevity and proximity underlying that even though a new Kim now reigns the relationship between the two countries remains as close as ever so the question is was there a friendship between China and North Korea when did it start or is this an understood friendship how should we understand sign of North Korea relation so this is the book which will be published which I co-authored with Chinese historian Shen Zihua so in this book we try to explore and understand this relation how it developed during the Cold War so a very brief survey of this relationship now in my next few minutes is that we know that North Korea we call DPRK was a Soviet satellite state from 1945 to 1950 before the outbreak of the Korean War and the Chinese communists actually have no influence on North Korea during that period of time Kim Jong-un initiated the Korean War we now know Kim Jong-un initiated the Korean War starting approved it and the model don't accept it but reluctantly we know that during the Korean War China and North Korean the real relation was not good not good at all even during the Korean War now the relation they have sharp contradictions at leadership level for example the two side have difficulties in creating a Chinese and North Korea joint command they also quarreled over weighing and weather they should cross the 30S Parallel to liberate the south the two side also struggled over who should have the right to control the North Korea railroad in order to provide logistics for the troops and they also argued over how and when they should end the war so we know that there are many contradictions and conflicts even during the Korean War even when the Chinese were dying and paying for the war so at the end of the war actually the relationship between China and North Korea was very cold so model don't the Chinese need to try to improve relation with North Korea by providing massive economic aid for North Korea's post-war reconstruction we know that started immediately after the end of after the war in a ceasefire in 1953 but three years later now we know that there was this August 1956 incident in the Korean Workers' Party Kim perched those North Korean officials who had association and who spent their World War II time in China with the Chinese communists who joined so model was very very much angry so the Chinese and the Suits they sent a joint Sino-Suit denigration headed by the Chinese Defense Minister Peng Dehui and the Suits Vice Premier Mikol Yang to interfere in the North Korea's domestic issue and forced Kim Sung to give up to restate those perched officials who are associated with the Chinese so we know by the later of 1956 the relation between China and North Korea came to a very new point so at the time in November 30, 1956 the Chinese leader Mao Zedong had the I'm sorry Mao Zedong had the conversation a private conversation with the Soviet ambassador to China in that Mao said Kim Sung is just like a tree you Suits you planted him and the Americans pulled him out and we replanted him now he doesn't listen to us so we know the relation actually was very tough now we say at its newest point by 1956 but however Mao made a turn around so at the October 1957 the Moscow Conference of World Communists and Workers' Party Mao again tried to improve relations with Kim Sung so he personally apologized to Kim Sung for so we joined intervention to North Korea's internal affairs in September 1956 now he promised to withdraw Chinese troops from North Korea now which happened in 1958 about two moments okay so I'll be quick yeah so now we know now this is what we talk about the special relation so Sino-North Korea special relation we started in 1958 when the Chinese people's volunteer army withdraw from Korea in that period and after Mao helped Kim Sung that his personal dictatorship as part of this special relationship China made a great effort to meet Pyong's security and economic needs while North Korea supported Beijing both politically and diplomatically so this started about in 1965 and this continued we argued that or do the renation now sometime was still very tough now as you see from this night now from 1965 to 1969 Sino-North Korea renation reached their newest age and the special renation faced a severe test neither Kim nor Mao attacked the other publicly and each attempted to annihilate some new way I can't elaborate because of time so I'm kind of finishing very soon so here are the main points if I have time I can elaborate but just to give these bones but no flesh and blood now here and then the major strike on the strategic foundation of the Sino-North Korea special relationship because China moved closer to North Korea's enemy number one the U.S. so China's post 1958 policy of reform and opening to the outside world shadowed the economic foundation of the Sino-North Korea special relationship with South Korea in 1992 cut the North threat in the broadening political foundation of the Sino-North Korea renation so Kim fear mightily mightily betrayed that's the end of Sino-North Korea special renation now very quickly I know maybe I need to so I stop talking about this but I move to my nose so basically I say that strategic and economic foundation of Sino-North Korea special renation collapsed completely at the renation between China and North Korea cold considerably after 1992 or do Beijing and Pyong attempt to project a semblance of political unity they were strange bad fellows but they still play the friendship car where it fits to their diplomatic and strategic leads thank you very much thank you again you've raised great issues and I'm going to come back and ask a couple of questions to dig a little deeper after our final speaker and that is Dr. Wong who is a visiting senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for strategic and security at the Atlantic Council he is also a director and associate professor at the Department of China's regional strategy national institute of international strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in addition he is also the deputy director general non-resident of the International Liaison Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League his research interests are on China's diplomacy North East Asian security Korean Peninsula security he's published several books and many journal articles and is a regular commentary in many major news outlets in China and around the world Dr. Wong it's really my pleasure to be here I think it's very timing just as my two colleagues mentioned the Liaison Business Channel is not only complicated but also very controversial actually in China according I mean among our scholars we also have a different viewpoint I'm mainly focused on the relation after the Cold War indeed my main talking point is the first one is our relation in China and North Korea it's not an alliance because the first reason as we know even since we enter Denghao Pingyi era China has abandoned the last policy the second reason because the relation between us we have no common enemy common enemy is very important I mean after the relationship normalized with South Korea and with the U.S I think we do not have common enemy my second point our relationship is still very special just like Prof. Xia mentioned first reason because we share long border for North Korea maybe the most longer border is China another one is Russia is very very short and also the for North Korea's economy heavily relies on China the second reason as we know the history without China's involvement we probably know the career regime we will not survive today but for Chinese we suffer a lot more than 180,000 Chinese people die another 380,000 injured so even today especially for older generation we have a special feeling on North Korea another reason because the power struggle is very imbalanced between South and North Korea as we know South Korea's economy GDP maybe 50 times than North Korea especially the military alliance between South Korea and the U.S from Chinese perspective the stable relationship between China and North Korea can restore this balance we know if the balance is very very big maybe no stability the last reason I think North Korea and China both bear huge strategic pressure from the alliance between U.S. and South Korea so we can say our relations is not alliance but it's still very very special my next talking point is relation also we have our problem I think the biggest problem is nuclear issue I can say this is the biggest problem we also I also want to say this is also maybe the only one strategic problem between China and North Korea except for this our relations is not only very important to each other but also irreplaceable this can be a plane Kim Jong-un's waste recently regarding Kim Jong-un's waste to Beijing my own understanding is what Kim Jong-un want is to have China support before these two summits especially the summit with U.S I think more importantly Kim Jong-un have to prepare for the danger if the summit with U.S. fails I think many Chinese scholars will go with if the summit with U.S. fails maybe there are more possibility that the war strike on North Korea I think for North Korea they should know clearly what's the mean the burden people surrounding Trump for North Korea he have to prepare the danger if the summit fails what China can get I think from Chinese perspective this waste is initiative by North Korea North Korea ask this request firstly North Korea publicly promise to China we denuclearize we will denuclearize I think this should be the poor condition for Kim Jong-un's waste to Beijing I think the Kim Jong-un's waste to Beijing and the improvement of our relations is conducive to Korea's panacea stability of the following two summits especially the summit between China North Korea and U.S. theoretically I think the key to settling North Korea nuclear issue is to offer security assurance to North Korea and in return we require North Korea to transfer their nuclear access to the other parties I think as we know the trust between North Korea and U.S. is very low I do not think North Korea trust U.S. I also do not think North Korea trust China but I do think any kind of security assurance to North Korea should be multilaterally not bilaterally I mean involvement not only U.S. so this is very very important meanwhile as we know we definitely believe North Korea will not give up their nuclear weapons easily they want to have the both but I think for our we should continue exert our pressure on North Korea as we know any kind of pressure any kind of sanction on North Korea China plays very important and unique role so I think the relation between our two countries improvement is very good for the following two summits my last point is although Kim Jong-un is very successful and very recently we can see very strong momentum relations we can see very recently President Xi Jinping's special envoy he just finished his visit to Pingrong we can see Pingrong gave him a lot of very very good welcome but I still think the future relations between China and North Korea may also suffer from uncertainty I think from the future especially the near future I still think there are more difficulties the first reason we know there may be ups and downs in North Korea's denuclearization process as we know from Chinese policy agenda denuclearization is still very very first priority on North Korea issue so maybe very recently from North Korea said okay they want to have a China support for their summit with US but after the summit after the summit finish with US if China continue to exert our very huge pressure on North Korea I think probably we will anger North Korea so the relation may be more difficult the second reason as we know from the past appearance lessons the same North Korea relations are also very very easily affected by external factors especially the relation between China and US and the relation between China and ROK I do not know I cannot speak either good or bad but I think also we are facing very very big uncertainty I will stop here I'm sure the audience is going to have many questions for you about Chinese policy and you clearly are someone articulate on the topic I am going to take the prerogative of the moderator and ask one question of each of the panelists and then we will open it up for questions first to Dr. Shu you know as you were speaking I thought about President Trump and how he is going to prepare for a summit with Kim one of the things that Asians often accuse Americans of not unfairly is that we don't think about history in fact we have a phrase we use we say that's history forget about it if you had a few minutes with President Trump how would you inform him on history so that he would be better prepared for this summit no for you okay I couldn't speak for other regions but from my own research because I'm doing research about pre-modern East Asia and actually I focus on more of the contemporary use and the intentional abuse of history for the political ends so my book is a very critical sort of analysis analysis of in name we are talking about history of like thousands of years ago but of course people only selectly pick the part that they needed for today and they use they read them reinterpreted them from the needs of today's angle yeah if I had an honor to ever talk to President Trump and I want to say that each region they have a historical difference and if you want to interact with countries East Asia history is extremely important history is important for many different reasons and two East Asia, China, Japan and Korea they share a lot but they are also very very different and with the rise of modern nationalism and China, Japan and Korea they all use different way of using history to construct their modern state modern nation and also modern national identity so if you really want to talk to the people from East Asia if you really want to make a case you really got to know history so I would say that's the starting point that's the background information and you can start from there so that would be my suggestion excellent thank you Doctor Xia I was really struck by in your presentation I think you said let me make sure I got this correct that it took 63 years for the North Koreans to publicly acknowledge that 180,000 Chinese had died in defense of North Korea you asked the question why then I guess my question is why would it take so long for the North Koreans to acknowledge such a huge contribution to their security thank you very much this is a very good question I have puzzled many people including myself we know actually immediately after the end of the Korean War in 1955 Kim Jong-un the grandpa of this North Korean leader he started to talk about Juche self-reliance so basically even during the 1950s in internal conversation sometime he talked about China and the Soviet Union's contribution to the Korean War and to North Korea reconstruction but in North Korean media and in public speech he always stressed North Korea's self-reliance so Kim was very very clear that he himself was the major player in all these issues China, he can come to China to the Soviet Union for all kinds of aid but he was not a neighbor publicly acknowledged that so why come to 2013 when the renaissance has become quite bad and North Korea because the Chinese pressure North Korea on the nuclear issue because the Chinese is moving closer to the US position impression North Korea to give up the nuclear weapon so North Korea tried to remind Chinese hey we were friends before we were on the same side so you should remember that you should help us no matter how even over the nuclear issue so that's my simple answer thank you Dr. Wong picking up on something Dr. Xia talked about in his presentation which has always interested me greatly when Kim Jong Il wanted to start the war to liberate South Korea if you will from American domination he went to Stalin and Stalin to the surprise of the Americans approved of the attack on South Korea but Mao as Dr. Xia said was reluctant I'd like you to give us a little sense of why you think we're reluctant to help with reunification yeah, firstly I want to say it's a very controversial point in China even today our textbook tells us it's not a North Korea initiated this war it's a big myth dig we speak of that actually I think for many many related I mean similar issues because China we really we do not know who initiated this attack from Chinese maybe many many people even today South Korea prepared very very well US prepared very very well so I don't know yet but from this viewpoint I do think history can tell us a lot I just want to follow your Professor Xia and Professor Xu history tells a lot firstly I think especially for today's relation in Korea Peninsula the situation I think we do have our differences between China and the US but I think we should talk these differences from Kendo I think from Korea Peninsula from the past lessons and appearance North Korea and South Korea they do want to play the bigger power card I think our cooperation is the most important for the stability of this area secondly today as we mentioned earlier it's a very timing it's a very sensitive it's a very critical moment I think we for the US side you should have very friendly talk with China I think from Chinese side the biggest worry for Chinese in Korea Peninsula is US your policy uncertainty we do not know what you will do next I think you should have theory talk with China lastly related to the current situation I prefer to the Gourna Bargain the Gourna Bargain from Sino-US cooperation later we can evolve in two careers Japan and Russia so I want to emphasize from the head tray from the career wall maybe the biggest threat is our miscalculation in Washington DC and Beijing thanks Dr. Shah you wanted to add something I just want to say very quickly that starting actually was very cautious before spring 1915 in 1949 actually Kim Il-sung sent his envoys to Moscow to beggar starting to agree to his attack on South Korea but Kim starting was very cautious always say no but why starting certainly changed his mind in spring of 1950 and give the green light when Kim Il-sung travel to Moscow in March 1950 to talk about to starting about attack starting said okay you may do it but make sure you talk to more go to Beijing and talk to more if you got into trouble I'm not going to help you I'm not going to nift my finger I'm not going to talk to Beijing to talk to more so when Kim Il-sung travel to Beijing to talk to more in May of 1950 they didn't have a very good conversation so the first the first meeting actually fell out so more sent Joe and I to the to the U.S. embassy in Beijing to check with starting and ask comrade Finipov did you agree okay basically if you want if you say yes it's okay if you say no Kim Il-sung will not attack so more was very unhappy or very reluctant to give I need a lot of time to talk but I just very quick give give you so more was very unhappy or didn't want Kim Il-sung to do that at the time many because the Chinese was preparing to taking over Taiwan the Taiwan campaign Kim Il-sung wait until I unify my country and then I help you but Kim Il-sung said I don't really need much of your help we are ready the war will be finished in a couple of weeks that's it so more said okay if you want to do it so when Kim Il-sung started that attack on the south on the evening of June 24th or American time is the evening of June 24th Korea is June 25th early hour in the morning the Chinese was not notified the Chinese actually come to see this three days later Chinese read the news from western media so the North Korea actually send a military attention to inform more inform Chinese government we started that three days later I better stop here well I think you can see that even the history is a little disputed here and I think we could have a very lively debate over it but I really do want to let the audience have a chance we have microphones a couple of notes number one if you would identify who you are and your associations number two there's a strong preference here for questions as opposed to speeches so if you raise your hand and one of the assistants will come to you questions my name is Ryan I'm a security studies student at Georgetown my questions for Dr. Wong why do we see China blocking or delaying attempts in the UN Security Council to blacklist ships shipping companies and individuals who are violating North Korea sanctions given that seems to be in conflict with China's interest in denuclearizing the peninsula and keeping up pressure to do so Dr. Wong I think actually the reality is Chinese our employment on the UN sanction is a very serious I even can say especially since last year until today our employment on UN sanction even beyond the UN I think this is also why can't we feel very angry toward China but as I mentioned the relation between our two countries is very complicated we deserve our sanction at the same time we want keep our relations stable back to your question I think as you know the Chinese individuals who are cooperating with the connection with North Korea actually every sanction the biggest country maybe most of the suffer is China so we really have you know even in China we also have some complaint because many Chinese will ask the government what can we get what can we get we suffer so much about nuclear issue maybe doing the business the common business with North Korea but every time the biggest suffer is Chinese so this is also why I always argue the cooperation between China and the US is very very important and also you cannot just ask China what you should do what you should do this you should like China feel beneficial what can we get two arguments firstly we implement it seriously secondly you should rethink what's your policy from the US side Dr. Wong if I could just ask a quick follow up Radio Free Asia granted I probably not a source you read very often but Radio Free Asia is claiming as a result of the visit to Beijing Beijing has agreed to ease some of those extra sanctions that China has put on North Korea do you believe there were any agreements made to ease the pressure on North Korea during the summit in Beijing I know here many people may be worried about maybe China will leave the sanctions from my understanding I engage in China for 19 years I definitely do not believe China will move will leave the sanctions but I do think maybe China will give them some human, Italian humanitarian so I think from China side maybe there are two reasons further from maybe the official view point we know very very well the nuclearization is not so easy we cannot leave we are a UN member I think we have to take care of the public opinion just like my colleague mentioned in China they are really very very popular so called abandoned North Korea we have to take care of this Thank you Hi Frank I'm USIP question for Professor Xia so the speech that Dean Acheson made about the US defense perimeter in the early 1950 is there any clarity about how that speech affected Stalin and Mao's decision to support the North Korean invasion I think for Stalin is yes I think Stalin actually he was very cautious in 1949 but by the spring of 1950 he become more excited he become the success of the Chinese revolution the Chinese communist took over the mainland China and Stalin seemed to see that a new revolutionary era was coming in East Asia so that's the reason but he was also very cunning to not burn his fingers so he said okay now you may do it but make sure you go to Beijing to talk to Mao now if Mao says yes it's yes but if Mao says no you better don't do it because if you get into trouble I'm not going to nick my fingers to help you so I think Dean Acheson there are many factors I think there are many factors involved in Stalin's changing of mind on South Korea but for Mao I think Mao was very reluctant as I said that Mao he wanted his priorities to unify China first to taking over Taiwan first so for Mao I don't think that Acheson he was reluctantly brought into the to the trouble as I say I think this gentleman down here my name is Mitsu Onakai Reagan Foundation I have two questions number one it's no big deal for me but I wonder why North Korea needs or wanted a facilitator facilitator meaning South Korea and why not directly go to Trump saying hey I want to sign it instead of going through South Korea that's number one so far up to this point North Korea is using South Korea as a spokesperson again going through South Korea why why why why I mean it's no big deal for me but I just wonder I think there is a lot more going on behind the scenes that we haven't heard or seen thank you who would like to answer well I can try well first of all I think there is no good channel for conversation between Pyongyang and Washington now that's one thing and they are very suspicious of each other so there's no good phase between South Korea and the United States so for this kind of conversation for South Korea I think Kim Jong-un is playing that and South Korea they are all Koreans so we are doing the same thing for the Korean nation so going to South Korea is North Korea's strategy and he would eventually be the leader in this project for the unification of the Korean peninsula so that's my understanding thank you can I ask a follow up do you believe that the North Korean leader truly believes he can unify the peninsula under his control I'll let anybody answer that I can take the I think from his ideology especially now he has a nuclear weapon he believed that he should be able to the leader of the unification from his ideology from many years of North Korean ideology and also now the nuclear power he probably still believes that he will be the leader of the unification do you want to I do not think that the North Korean leader is rational still want to unify South Korea maybe before 1980s North Korea most want to unify Korea peninsula after that until today maybe it's South Korea so I think for North Korea especially after the end of the Cold War maybe the biggest priority for North Korea is survival everything maybe North Korea leader is for regime survival I do not think that they still have such kind of dream to unify maybe from very very long time very important difference of opinion because as you know in Washington a lot of people feel New Korea country he wants to blackmail the South he wants to blackmail the United States and that it's American policy today so it is an important to coming back to your questions about why South Korea need to be agent and we have to remember that in 2016 and 17 we have to say I mean neither China and the United States would initiate a talk I do not think North Korea never tried to sort of approach and then to try to start some conversation but from what we see from outside at least from news and other venues and I think neither China and the United States were ready were willing to talk to North Korea unless they promised something first and South Korea is kind of different that last year with the new administration actually from the very beginning even when South Korea was very provocative when North Korea was very provocative South Korean president he openly said that oh we are willing to talk let's talk I think in that sense he was the only one South Korean administration was the only one who really want to start and then January 1st this year all of a sudden North Korea sort of started saying like oh we want to participate Olympics and let's do something big together Olympic it's for Korean people being a huge player in the world stage let's do it together so South Korea was more than happy willing to accept that gesture and that's how it started we have a question way up and back okay thank you Lin Feng with Voice of America can you speak just a little louder please Lin Feng with Voice of America I have two questions for Professor Xia and Dr. Wang first for the past six years we have seen the relationship between China and the North Korea was not so good but all of a sudden you have seen in the late March Kim Jong-un made his first official visit outside the country and the China gave him a warm very warm welcome and but some according to some Chinese scholar they said this is now the highest standard it is below the highest standard but still very warm welcome so my question is what can North Korea gain from Kim Jong-un's summit with President Xi Jinping and what China can gain from this summit and the second question is after President Trump's summit with Kim Jong-un what kind of role can China play after the Trump Kim summit thanks could North Korea gain from the meeting between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un I think North Korea were being a very much stronger position in meeting with President Trump with Chinese in the background because what if the meeting between Kim Jong-un and Trump fail so I think the Chinese basically said well you have to come to talk to us first if your meeting with Mr. Trump fail your summit fail we were still support you so I think it's very important for Kim Jong-un to come to Beijing before you see Mr. Trump what could China again many commentator already talked about that China want to to demonstrate to the world that any re-knowing, any issuing North Korea on the Korean Peninsula I don't forget that China is the most important in this game it's a very good question I think this is also the question why Kim Jong-un come back the diplomatic ways recently not only I think there are two most important reasons first is Trump make a similar pressure the second reason is China's maybe our policy some change in Beijing I give you for example in the past I mean before I really believe China will not abandon them but from last year I think we've seen a very very clear signal so maybe we even can say maybe we are also preparing for the worst scenario the first we can say there are so contingency plan talking you can find in the public papers in China actually in the past it's a very very sensitive you cannot find it but last year you can find secondly we also have some conference even academic conference talk about the so called contingency plan more importantly is military drill along the border with North Korea I definitely believe North Korea received this signal we are also preparing the worst scenario so I think for this also answer your question what North Korea can get from this waste the first thing to remove their worry that China may be I mean preparing for the worst scenario China will object the worst strike on them I think this worry I definitely really is the biggest worry for him secondly just I mentioned earlier for this summit he had to show I have a channel support maybe the little one is so called the human Italian citizens economic citizens I'm going to ask a question of each of you to look into your crystal ball and you are all deep experts on China, Korea the United States so I want to ask you whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about success when President Trump and President Kim meet with each other okay I think for me half and a half yeah actually from from Chinese side just like we mentioned worried about the so called marginalized it's not true I think we really worry about the two scenario the first scenario is maybe for North Korea and for Trump just want to show from this summit it's very good to claim they are victory but the denuclearization only is a word I think the biggest problem for China and the US denuclearization this is the first we worry about secondly we really worry about they very very hurry summit probably may fail for example if they okay claim victory no matter anyway we know the career to fear that a middle test a nuclear test probably maybe Trump US you will feel humiliated maybe war strike probably maybe more possibility will happen from Chinese side we really worry about this this is also can you plan why China want to involve the US we really want to help this summit okay I hope I'm the miracle worker and I'm a fortune trainer but unfortunately I'm not so what I see is that probably Kim Jong-un will try to make Mr. Trump happy there will be a media success as Professor Wang said he will go with nuclear denuclearization but after the meeting he will continue what he has been doing he is not going to implement anything that he promised to Mr. Trump so that's my guess thank you as a historian I want to go back to my argument I want to look at some of the things in the long run so maybe in 10 years 20 years it's uncertain but if you look at 100 years later from today I think I'm very much optimistic for what's going to happen and just to think I'm sure like some political commentator make this comparison already that in 1972 Richard Nixon visited China I'm pretty sure he never imagined what's going to be the US-China in the future 30 years of course now we have a little bit of a low point but still we have to look for the future so I think there might be some kind of low points but this low points is more for something more promising for the future and all together I think we all as a human being we know that there is a more point of trying to maintain this and so in that run I think the Trump summit meeting you can see a short term effect but I would look more into the long term effect if you start something for us even though it's not necessary very positive but we still want to see something good promising for long run thank you we have time for a couple more questions let's see Hi my name is Chen Yang from George Washington University I have a very brief question for all the three panelists since you are experts on China and North Korea I would like to ask if you have just watched the CCTV drama I would translate it into the world has changed and that drama has also touched on Chen Mei Mao's reluctancy you were talking about basically Mao was just saying that we just finished two big wars and China is not ready to fight another one so I was just asking if you paid attention to that drama and your reflections on the drama thank you have any of you seen the drama I don't know I'm afraid I don't think our panelists are able to answer your question can we have one more question yes sir yes Dave it's your retired foreign service question perhaps for professor looking back at Korean history while the focus today is on China and North Korea there's also China, South Korea Korea in general relationships with China is there really an argument to be made that we would ever see the need for any Korean state to have an alliance in their terms of their relationship with China apparently the notion of alliance has dropped out of the China and North Korean one is there a likelihood that the U.S. South Korean alliance relationship would diminish going forward perhaps in the light of this notion of a grand bargain on the peninsula yeah I can only speak from the historical perspective and altogether I think you can say it's Korea in general it applies to both North Korea and South Korea when you talk about the historical relationship of the tributary system so it's very interesting how North Korea and South Korea experience how they see tributary system and it's very different from China so from China side they want to explain the tributary system as it is it's like Korea as a whole it was inferior to China and in these China's protection and also it's almost sort of like a subject of China as for both Koreans that applies both North Korean and South Korean scholars at least for this point they want to explain the tributary system in a more like pragmatic reason they will say true we go visit you the Chinese emperor but the reality is because we want the cultural exchange we want trade and if in the pre-modern period we don't have proper venue for that if the tributary system is the only venue for that yes we can do that but we don't necessarily to be subject of you and we don't necessarily always feel that we are inferior explain this historical relation as for the long run as I said in my presentation that China is just way too important for North Korea I think it's fair to say that China is more important to Korea or vice versa as North Korea important to China I mean just because some Chinese scholars would feel they could afford to abandon North Korea so that's the reason for this hypothesis of okay let's just forget about North Korea let's just move on so that tells that how important China is to North Korea so I think in long run North Korea want alliance and that's also the reason that this time Kim Jong-un visited to China it looks very sudden to a lot of people but it's not very unusual but how do we understand that as I said it's not a return to the previous complete reliance or over reliance on China but Kim Jong-un definitely felt there is a need for adjustment he cannot afford to be enemy with China for too long any final comments from our other panelists maybe I just very quickly I agree with what Professor Xu said that North Korea need alliance North Korea also want to tell the Chinese that we are not inferior but in reality we know that Kim Jong-un his grandpa during his lifetime he almost make any trip to Beijing to see more labor with him or labor with the North Korea so there is still although in theory or in his mind he want to see to be treated as equal but in reality he knows that he was in an inferior position so this mentality probably is still resisted so that's why you see Kim Jong-un he made the visit to Beijing not the other way around that's a great place to end this conversation I want to thank our panelists for terrific insights please join me in a round of applause and I believe we have a 15 minute break and we'll begin it at 25, thanks. That was great. All right so we'll go in and get started my name is Frank Ahm I'm with USIP focusing on North Korea issues the last session provided a great foundation for understanding the history and dynamics of the North Korea-China relationship which brings us to the present situation I know in the last session there was a lot of interesting questions about the current situation so we'll hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about these sessions the two countries are re-immigrating their ties and the strain relationships of the last seven years looks to be like water under the bridge so for this panel instead of looking at a more conventional question like what's China's role in the current period of diplomacy with North Korea we want to examine a more strategic question that gets at China's long-term interests on the Korean Peninsula so this panel will assess China's perspective on the ideal end state for the Korean Peninsula and whether a reunified Peninsula under South Korean leadership would be beneficial or detrimental to Chinese interests I think the common understanding today is that China would prefer a situation where a North Korean state and government continue to exist so that a buffer remains between any US presence and the Chinese border Beijing may also have the belief that a reunified Korean Peninsula under South Korean leadership could only come about through instability or the collapse of the North Korean state and this is something that Beijing wants to avoid so to provide the insights and thoughts on this question we have a fantastic panel of experts first is Yoon Sun who is the director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Simpson Center next we have Professor Hongyu Kim who is a professor of political science at Aju University's China Institute and then last we have Dr. Michael Green who is the Japan Chair and Senior Vice President for Asia at CSIS CSIS as well as the Chair in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University so I will let each of them speak for 10 minutes or so and then I'll ask a few questions of the panelists for another 20 minutes and then open it up during the remaining time for Q&A so with that being said Yoon Sun please start us off thank you so much Frank thanks to the USIP for the invitation to be here so I will cover two issues the first one is the Chinese perspective on issues related to the unification the second portion is China's desired endgame I'm a China analyst so I focus on the Chinese perspective of things so first of all on the issue of the unification just like Frank just described China has a lot of concerns about unification however despite these concerns virtually there is a consensus that in China that the unification of the Korean Peninsula is inevitable so two main reasons explain this perception first and most importantly although divided North Korea and South Korea have the same strong national and ethnic identity recognizing themselves as the same nation this common identity forms the unbreakable link and foundation for their unification and no leader from either North Korea or South Korea can abandon this goal for the Chinese policy community the eventual unification from this perspective between the two Koreas is a given and the Chinese the reason that it has not yet happened is that the conditions for unification have not repented both in and outside the peninsula secondly China views the Korean unification issue through the prisms of its own issue of the division of mainland between mainland China and Taiwan Chinese sees the unification of the mainland China and Taiwan as what they call the irreversible trend of history and what they call common desire of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait this position logically leads to the recognition of the Korean people's similar desire for reunification in other words since China also faces a task of national reunification and deeply resents the United States for its interference on Taiwan it would be counter-intuitive and morally unacceptable for China to play a similar antagonizing role in the affairs of the Korean peninsula that said the recognition of the inevitability of the Korean unification does not equate to China's active support for or facilitation of unification between the two Koreas with unification presumed as a certainty the uncertainty for China lies in its timing its arrangements and its impact on China judging from today's reality the North and South are to reunite under current conditions through absorption most likely for the Chinese perspective there will be a pro-U.S. Korea on China's border this would pose a potential threat to China's interests that Beijing is keen to avoid although a growing number of Chinese observers and analysts view North Korea's provocations in recent years as detrimental to the regional stability and China's interests as well they consider the current situation as preferable to reunified Korea that would introduce a higher level of certainty to China's security environment on its periphery and the recent changing ties of the Sino-DPRK relations in particular tests to this conviction Chinese experts cite various potential benefits that could accrue to China as a result of the Korean unification first China's northeast provinces and Inner Mongolia would benefit greatly from the unification of Korea the existence of economically backward and politically unstable North Korea adjacent to China has hampered the development of northeast China economic development of the Korean Peninsula would also provide a boost for regional economic growth and regional economic cooperation second and being the era of the Chinese assistance to North Korea to prop up the regime would also be enormously economically beneficial and third a united Korea would serve as a bulwark against China once both Chinese and Koreans are wary of Japan once again becoming a militarist aggressive power in the region so for example some of the Chinese special Chinese Korea specialists would assert that a united Korea would join China and jointly contain China's expansion on the other hand Korean unification is seen as posing potential challenges that would have an active impact over China's security so most commonly cited potential danger is a possible deployment of US troops north of the 38 parallel and in recent years such concern has been expanded to the continued deployment of US force on the Korean Peninsula as a whole Chinese experts say that the need as a buffer against this possibility is most commonly cited by the military strategist a second potential problem for China is the emergence of border issues including increased tensions over disputed territory a third risk associated with the Korean unification is an uncertain reaction of the over one million ethnic Koreans residing in northeast China who may display nationalist tendencies in history worries have existed that ethnic Koreans could have a greater allegiance to a unified Korea than to Beijing so any effort to influence China's decision making regarding the Korean Peninsula and unification must be based on an accurate understanding of China's bottom line considerations as emphasized by various top Chinese leaders and conveyed to both North Korea and South Korea unification as envisioned by China must satisfy two conditions one it must be achieved peacefully through dialogue and negotiations without use of force and two it must be independent and self determining meaning achieved voluntarily by the two Koreas without influence from other countries this eliminates three unification scenarios from the Chinese perspective the first one is not peaceful and not independent which means unification dictated or influenced by the United States through the use of force a second unacceptable scenario for China but not independent which means unification achieved through absorption but as a result of interference by the United States either with South Korea or with both Koreas this is a tricky scenario and indicates that if North Korea and the United States improve their bilateral relations and Washington facilitates unification through dialogue based on good relations with both Koreas it would also be interpreted as problematic for China the third scenario is not peaceful but independent which means that unification achieved through the use of force by the two Koreas only and without the involvement of the United States for the Chinese perspective the responsibility of unification first and foremost lies with the two Koreas with implied message that neither United States nor China should play a main role in driving the unification process for unification to be both peaceful and independent it has to be achieved through bilateral dialogues, negotiations and bilateral agreements between Pyongyang and Seoul and between them only this perceived unification scenario requires a series of political and economic conditions which in Beijing's view should be the main tasks for the two Koreas to create so politically North Korea must become an equal partner of the South Korea a viable legitimate state recognized by Seoul and by the international community this would North Korea to adopt serious economic and political reforms and abandon this military's first strategy to become a normal state but this condition is contingent upon the abandonment of the so-called hostile policy by South Korea and the United States first in the Chinese view economically China sees a vast gap between the two Korean economies as a fundamental obstacle to unification Chinese analysts also question whether South Korea has a mental and financial readiness to handle the financial consequences of unification and the warns that a failed unification will result in instability so for these Chinese experts the conditions for unification do not yet exist in other words unless North Korea and South Korea could bridge their economic gap and become equal parties in the negotiated unification and the other arrangements are bound to fail so coming to China's desired end game and the bottom lines China has three stated goals on the Korean Peninsula and we know them out well stability, peace and denuclearization China is strongly averse to an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula reasons for the fear are abundant including but not limited to refugee inflows, humanitarian disasters China being joined into the conflict and the negative consequences of a potential premature unification China is also afraid of the use of nuclear weapons right on the Chinese border although the strategic utility of North Korea for China as a buffer state has long since been mitigated by the liability that China has to carry for North Korea's provocative behavior China nevertheless treats North Korea as a leverage in bilateral negotiations with Washington a leverage that will be erased if North Korea ceases to exist so all in all China's war anxiety is so severe that no war and no chaos is a clear red line for China China has been sympathetic towards North Korea's vulnerability and sense of insecurity vis-à-vis South Korea alliance and sees the North Korean nuclear program as a direct result of North Korean insecurity therefore in the Chinese logic the path to denuclearization lets in how to remove North Korea's deeply embedded sense of insecurity and the most direct path is to have a peace mechanism including a U.S. security guarantee and diplomatic normalization so in the view of the Chinese the Korean war has not officially ended on the peninsula because the 1953 Amstis was never replaced with a peace treaty so for China are sharing the United States and North Korea on to the path of negotiation towards a peace mechanism and the possible condition for North Korea to denuclearize to this end China has proposed a due-track process featuring parallel negotiations on a peace mechanism and on denuclearization people have long believed that Beijing's agenda on North Korea is strictly limited to three stated goals if this were true China would not be so opposed to unification led by South Korea since it will bring stability peace and denuclearization the fact that Beijing has preferred to support the DPRK's continued separate existence indicates that China has a bigger and more important consideration which is the end game on the Korean peninsula in the event for example of a North Korean contingency in the Chinese perception the U.S. and South Korea would likely pursue not just a policy of denuclearization but also one of stabilization leading to unification successful implementation of this policy for China would inevitably lead to the demise of North Korea and alter the power equilibrium on the Korean peninsula China's desired end game on the Korean peninsula is centered on the future of the U.S. South Korea military alliance China is not opposed to the unification of the peninsula but it is opposed to unified Korean peninsula as a military ally of the United States in China's vision a unified politically stable and economically prosperous Korean peninsula is in China's interest and a far more superior option than the current state however for China or at least according to Chinese analysts that I have talked to throughout the years such a unified Korea needs to be as a minimum neutral between the United States and China and preferably pro-China and paying its deference to China on key regional and global issues so according to some Chinese experts China might even consider the acceptance of unified Korea continuing to be U.S. ally and there's a condition that all U.S. troops are withdrawn from the peninsula making the alliance more symbolic rather than substantive I'll stop there and look forward to this discussion thank you thank you so much for that very balanced and comprehensive overview so to continue the conversation Professor Kim thank you very much for inviting me and this is a very precious opportunity for me to communicate with the scholars in the United States to look at the environment of Korean unification it seems to be extremely difficult to achieve at this moment there are three factors affecting the Chinese calculation to Korea's unification first one is the lesson from the Korean War which is quite negative to the unification and then the second factor is U.S.-China strategic rivalry the region published the National Security National Strategic Security Security Strategy mentioned that China as a competitor and then also revisionist to the current international order which is also quite negative to the Korean unification and then the third factor is Xi Jinping's policy orientations this is I assume that it is still negative too but open to the kind of possibility thinking Korean unification more positively than before I mean okay South Korea is now surrounded by the five guys as you see over there you can see which is not the name of restaurants it doesn't it doesn't sound kind of something smells good or delicious it's really awful and then they are charismatic and self-confident and straightforward so with these five guys I wonder whether South Korean governments really can manage well and then persuade them for the Korean unification so this is really a kind of challenge for us and so as a result the now complicated relationship in North East Asia and then okay then here I would like to focus the Chinese changing orientation to the Korean unification instead of focusing on US China's strategy library and then also the legacy of Korean war which is I really doesn't want to broad my topic today so let's see first Xi Jinping's foreign policy orientation okay the identity change is very important during the Xi Jinping's year Chinese national identity has been changed from the world's largest developing country to developing great power as a result China launched an unprecedented mid-long-term grand strategy the so-called Benton Road initiative which may prolong the several decades from now on and also geographically China identify self as a kind of from continental power to a continental maritime conflicts power okay and then also from East Asian country to the hub and center of the Eurasian and also China I think under the Xi Jinping's new identity and also ambition and then they try to re-evaluate given Korea policy and also even active preparation for North Korea's instability and contingencies let's look at the Chinese position on the unification on the Korean peninsula and the Chinese official position is of course to support Korean unification peaceful and independent unification however China has certain conditions China's intrinsic position is conditional and against the world and basically favors state as documented in the democratic republic embassies classified from Pyongyang dates back to March 28, 1973 even though the Chinese media might seems to support DPRK's position at the moment on the unification of Korea China would support the unification of Korea only if China can assure itself that a unified Korean peninsula become pro-China China was concerned that unified Korea with more than 50 million population would become politically more important and more independent a leader possessing political ambitions beyond the Korean peninsula may emerge a Chinese afraid of maybe the consequences of Korean unification if unified Korea is against China China now perceive the unified Korea would have negative implications for Chinese strategy interest due to the influence of the United States over South Korea however during the period of Xi Jinping's China became much more ambitious of Korean peninsula they are trying to get out of the kind of legacy of either Lasker alliance and then also pursuing the national interests and then try to re new balancing on the Korean peninsula and also they want to extend the influence the Korean peninsula of all as a whole China has adopted a new approach aimed at enhancing its influence on the two Koreas with the focus of its national interest taking more balanced stance toward two Koreas China has to establish their normal state-to-state relationship with North Korea while supporting sanctions against North Korea provocation if North Korea provocate the Chinese maybe interested and of course China will adopt China also made a very considerable effort to improve relations with South Korea however when South Korea made a decision to introduce the third system and then China strongly opposed to and then also they adopted the sanction against South Korea as well so Xi Jinping's new policy actually ended up now quite unfavorable relationship with both Koreas South Korea there is also however China was quite ambitious and also changing atmosphere actually in the Chinese academia about Koreas and also the Korean Unification according to my own research and then I did kind of analysis on the Chinese articles about Korean Peninsula during Xi Jinping's year which counted 91 articles from the CNK which is the searching engine of China and then also the Futhan University's library engine and then it was 92 out of 52 out of 91 was quite positive to the sanction against North Korea and then also South Korea instead of North Korea so this is a kind of dramatic change in Chinese atmosphere to South Korea and then also their maybe attitude toward the South Korean Unification even some of a group of scholars including Yan Xiatong and Wang Yue proposed the idea of South Korea and China alliance they view South Korea as a important swing state and seems to think the South Korea should be more motivated to collaborate with China than with the United States considering its economic reliance on China its geographic proximity to China and also cultural affinity between the two countries they hope that China should ask South Korea to relax its alliance with the United States in return for China's readjustment of its role as North Korea's guardian thereby making South Korea some kind of neutral state then new the Korean government Moon Jae-in's North Korea policy also respond to the Chinese kind of position positively to pursue peaceful coexistence and prosperity and gradual unification which is quite comparable with however strategic distrust between these two countries has been the key word between even China and South Korea and also the United States and China therefore Korean unification requires a kind of strategic cooperation between the United States and China also they reduce the strategic distrust between South Korea and China this is kind of a request for the unification maybe identify seven points of benefits China may anticipate if Korean peninsula are unified first one is stabilizing effects on U.S.-China relations the protracted North Korean nuclear crisis and instability on the Korean peninsula regarded as a source of U.S.-China conflicts and then second one is geoeconomic benefits for eastern region third one is stabilizing effect in North Korea's northern part and the fourth benefits became easier to control mass constructive the weapons on North Korea fifth benefits China may think the South Korea would be closer with China than the United States and we can see the cooperation and the iconographic proximity and ethnic and cultural similarities sixth could also provide a positive atmosphere on the unification with Taiwan seventh unified Korea also anticipate to increase cooperation with China to check Japan from its military armaments and also maybe argue in this way, China may have red and bottom lines on the Korean unification, red lining is the no world, no chaos, no regime change on the Korean peninsula, unless a unified Korea is at least a neutral state or favorably pro-Chinese state. But if I combine all the factors now currently and then I can see at the maybe at most and then maybe at the bottom lines. First one is China may have a tax term recognition on the attacks on North Korea's WMD facilities if the attack would not return into into a world, particularly prolonged war. Second, China may probably allow Kim Jong-un's removal if Kim Jong-un continues to cause trouble. So China possibly recognize Korean red unification if United States is not involved. Fourth, China may consent on South Korea's nuclear armament if South Korea pursue independence. Fifth, China may open the kind of rock China dialogue on North Korea contingencies. These five are the I assume that the China may have a bottom lines if we go to the extreme. So anyway so far I can conclude China is kind of a state favoring state score if we combine all the three factors as I mentioned and then also but still there is still open possibility China to change their position toward unification but the conditions should be met. Okay thank you very much. Thank you Professor Kim. Again also a very comprehensive balance presentation but also it seemed like you're making some very strong points for the value of moving beyond the status quo. Lastly Dr. Green. Thank you Frank. Thank you everyone for joining today. The United States has tried to have long-term strategic dialogue with China on the future of the Korean peninsula for at least two and a half decades through the Bush Clinton Bush Obama and now Trump administrations. I've been involved in some of that when I was at the Pentagon and then at the NSC and before and after in 1.5 track or second track dialogue with Chinese former officials and scholars and officials on the future of the peninsula. Those discussions have been very very difficult. The Chinese side in general has not been forthcoming. Part of that is because they fear not unreasonably that the US might leak and that this would damage Beijing's very delicate and troubled but important relationship with Pyongyang. Part of it is because China does not want to encourage the United States to think that regime change or some kind of accelerated unification meaning end of the North Korean regime is possible but I think part of it is that the Chinese side has a very hard time grappling with this problem. Unification of the Korean Peninsula would unfreeze the technical state of war that has existed on the Korean Peninsula since 1953. It would bring us back to the past potentially. Would it bring us back to 1950 and 51 when the United States and China were enemies and were fighting for control of the peninsula? Would it bring us back to the turn of the 19th century when Japan and China were fighting wars for control of the Korean Peninsula? Or perhaps more bananly from Beijing's perspective would it bring us back to the period before the West when the Qing and before that Ming dynasties were able to dominate the Korean Peninsula with the brief exception of Hedyoshi's invasion of Korea? It opens up big geopolitical questions that Deng Xiaoping set aside for China in many respects. It opens up questions about China's own political system because if you do have a unified Korea that is democratic that would be the largest democratic advanced democracy on China's border. By far it'd be the only one. India is separated by the Himalayan Mountains. Mongolia is small and weak, its democracy is often struggling. So it really I think is much more confounding for Chinese strategic planners, political leaders than we perhaps recognize. The Chinese official position for some years now has been that Beijing supports independent unification, which Yun said outlined very well. Independent unification is premised essentially on a Korea that is not aligned with the United States. It does not just mean the process should be independent, that the North and South should be able to decide without interference from outside powers, but that the end state is independent. When you probe and push on this with Chinese officials and scholars, the ideal outcome of independent unification means that the Korean Peninsula unified is independent of the United States, that there is not a U.S.-R.K. alliance. But as Yun Sun pointed out, most Chinese scholars are not confident this will be the future. Most Chinese scholars, when you put a little malty in them, will generally concede that the most likely scenario is unification under the South, which certainly means a more democratic Korea and very likely a Korea aligned with the United States. So the declared Chinese principles, the so-called red lines for China, I think are not red. I think there are statements of principles and that there's a lot more contextuality. There's a lot more shaping that is possible in the Chinese views of this. They'll take the best they can get, but it is not written and sewn. And when you talk about a red line, usually when you say a red line, you're talking about conditions under which a country would fight a war. So we should be cognizant of in studying Chinese interests. It's critical, which is why this conference is so useful. But I don't think that the positions China has taken, including independent unification, are Kasus Bellai, are war fighting conditions for China. I think the Chinese side is going to cross the river by filling the stones or whoever, dunk shopping, put it to some extent. That said, under Xi Jinping, China has put out a clear preference for how we would like to see Asian order evolve. And the best example of that was Xi Jinping's April 2014 speech in Shanghai for the SICA CICA conference on the Eurasian continent's integration, which is also the context for the Belt and Road Initiative. And at SICA, the Chinese side proposed to all the participating foreign ministers and heads of state who came from as far away as Turkey and Israel at one end of the Eurasian continent and Seoul, South Korea, on the other end. And the Chinese side circulated a draft joint statement that they wanted to put out from the summit, which declared that Asia should have security decided by Asia, and there should be no external blocks. It was a pretty transparent attack on the center of gravity for American influence in Asia, which is our alliance system, including the alliance with Korea. Two of our allies, Israel and Turkey, signed this document, not perhaps fully knowing the East Asia context or perhaps not caring. The Korean foreign minister resisted, came under enormous pressure from the Chinese foreign ministry, but refused to sign. And so in the end, instead of a joint declaration, the text was read as a speech by Xi Jinping. The Korean government was proud, this was under PAKUNE, that it had resisted this Chinese pressure, but should have been alarmed that Xi Jinping's lieutenants thought that Korea might sign onto a Eurasian statement that rejects alliances. And I think that is, as people say in poker, a tell. I think that tells you where the geopolitical lie is for Xi Jinping's China and the future they would like to see and are trying to push for the Republic of Korea and the Korean Peninsula, which is one under a Eurasian hegemonic position dominated by China, which is a vision of the past that goes before 1950, before, you know, 1894, back to an earlier period of Chinese history and Sino-centric dominance. However, most Chinese scholars think this won't be so easy that the South Korean side will dominate unification. So it's all in play. The defense of concerns of China, I think Yun Sun outlined very well. I would just emphasize three. One is for China, an awful lot is made of whether or not the United States will have a battalion of the Second Infantry on the Yellow River. And yes, it comes up a lot in Chinese writings, but to me, it's an unsensical discussion. The US Army is not going to want a battalion of the Second Infantry Division on the Yellow River and the Korean Peninsula. And more to the point, neither will Congress. It's a bit of a red herring. I know it comes up a lot. I think the larger concern for China is alignment, this question of whether or not the Republic of Korea will be allied with the United States, and particularly a unified Korea, which is why China came down so hard on Seoul on THAAD deployments. It was not because THAAD would shoot down Chinese missiles or see into China. It was because THAAD was a missile defense system that Japan was deploying, that the US is deploying in Guam that would link Korea into a collective security system in Asia based on missile defense. It's that transition or that possible metastasizing, I can never say that word, of bilateral alliances into a larger collective security arrangement that would constrain China's power and influence. THAAD was so upsetting about THAAD. So that's one concern. The second I would emphasize, I touched on earlier, is ideology. We don't know, but I don't think we should underestimate the impact of a democratic unified Korea on China's border. The fact of four or five million ethnic Koreans is a historical legacy and a powerful magnetic pull against central Chinese control. But it also has a lot to do with the demonstration of the demonstration effect of a potentially, potentially of a deeply Stalinist regime transforming under democratic government in Seoul. And then the third factor I would emphasize a little bit more is the Chinese grand strategy for maritime Asia in 2008, 2009 was promulgated by the Central Military Commission called the Near Sea Strategy. The idea was to deny the US and US alliances access to the first island chain going from Japan through the Philippines, Taiwan, south, and eventually control that and deny the US access to the second island chain driving from Guam down. In other words, for China to secure its maritime flank, which was the source of China's demise in the middle of the 19th century. And for the US to have a major ally on the continent of Asia tethers China in a way that complicates that strategy. So I agree with what Yun Sun said, but these in geopolitical terms are quite important. All the incentive therefore is for China to delay unification. If the Chinese assessment is that both North and South Korea will grow more dependent on China over time, then why rush unification? Why introduce chaos? Why precipitate a unified Korea under Seoul when the more time it takes, the longer you kick the can down the road, the better you chance you have if you're Beijing of controlling both Koreas and getting something closer to an quote unquote independent unification. Xi Jinping is a Marxist. It's his hobby. It's not just his ideology. He studies the forces of dialectical materialism. And if you look at trade flows, certainly looks like the trends are that China will have a dominant position in trade with both North and South Korea about the estimates vary 80 to 90% of North Korea's trade. South Korea trades more with China than it does with the U.S. and Japan combined. There is a fundamental economic flaw in Xi Jinping's logic, if that's what he thinks, which is that foreign direct investment and financial flows are overwhelmingly trans-Pacific. And, you know, FDI is marriage. Trade is dating. And it certainly, the foreign direct investment flows point to a very, very robust, trans-Pacific US ROK economic relationship regardless of trade flows, which are part of production networks. But nevertheless, I think the incentive for China is clearly to delay. This in turn has an impact on the diplomacy of the North Korea today. Because if the incentive is for Beijing to delay, then the incentive is for Beijing to not put pressure on North Korea, except to participate, enough pressure to get North Korea to participate in some diplomacy that continues kicking this can down the road. So I would conclude by saying these geopolitical questions are not just relevant for the long-term or possibly shorter term, eventual unification of the Korean Peninsula and what that means for the geopolitics of Northeast Asia. I think the assumptions going into this long-term scenario planning for Beijing have a direct impact on how much China is willing to put pressure on North Korea today. Because if Beijing concludes that U.S.-Japan-Korea alliances are getting stronger, many of you have heard me say this, then the incentive is for Beijing to do something to get North Korea to play. But if Beijing concludes that the U.S.-Japan-Korea the alliances are not coming together, that time is on China's side, then there's no incentive for Beijing to put serious pressure on North Korea. So these longer-term geopolitical questions about unification are informing, I think, decisions Beijing is making right now about how much to pressure North Korea. So it's not just academic. It's not just hypothetical. It has an impact on the diplomacy right now and today. Thank you. Thank you very much, Arthur. And I appreciate that you outlined very explicitly and not euphemistically what China perceives as the negative aspects of unification and what their concerns are. I quickly will lead it off with three questions and then we'll open it up. So first my question for Yunson is you talked about China wanting unification to happen independently without interference. But how do you think China balances that need for independent unification on the Korean Peninsula with its own interest of not wanting to be marginalized and wanting to make sure that they have a very strong voice and role on the strategic direction of the Korean Peninsula? They've expressed both. So how do you balance that? How does China balance that? How does China balance a process or of unification that is regarded as independent? If you talk to the Chinese policy community as for what is the model for unification a few years ago, there were more discussions about the German model. How was Germany just integrated or absorbed East Germany into one unified Germany? And from the Chinese perspective, what they see more likely and this was when I was based in Beijing about nine years ago, they were talking about this Taiwan model that basically used economic integration. If North Korea is open to economic opportunities and South Korea could use those economic channels to achieve economic integration. Of course today, when the Chinese look at their experience with economic integration facilitating political consolidation of Taiwan, that campaign has not been particularly effective. So we don't hear that much anymore. But in the Chinese vision, what they prefer to see is that North Korea and South Korea as eco-partners and could discuss a future of their social, economic and political integration. And China, because China is such a major economic presence and has such a major political influence over both North Korea and South Korea, China will be able to have its influence over the preferred channel or the preferred outcome most indirectly, but not directly as a ally of the North Korea or as a director political interference in the outcome of the unification. I don't think China has a particularly strong preference coming to what that unified Korea will look like domestically. That is why there is economically, of course, most likely it will be a capitalist economy based on market economy. And politically, what model eventually will come out of the unification I think that's less of a concern for China because China's concern is primarily about the external alignment choices of that unified Korea. So as for the details as for how the social integration, economic integration, political integration are gonna happen, that's lesser a concern for China. However, I should point out that there's also the question as for who will be carrying the cost of the unification. If South Korea or if the international community eventually decides that the cost of unification will be shared by the international community then I think that's another venue that China will seek to exercise their influence. So certainly unification and the future of the peninsula is driven by the two Koreas but it's gonna be hard to avoid or ignore some indirect influence by the major pioneers, China and US. I'd like to actually follow up and turn to Dr. Green and follow up on the last part of your statement. So do you think China's main interests, what do you think China's main interests are over the next few months as diplomacy plays out and do you think that they will not be acting in good faith because of their concerns about things moving beyond the status quo? I hesitate to say it's in good faith or bad faith when a country acts on its interests. So I wouldn't wanna make a judgment about the morality of China's position but I do think that China's incentives as I was suggesting earlier will be to get the peninsula back into a process of diplomacy. That's not in and of itself bad. I think China's preference would be for diplomacy that marginalizes Japan. So you've probably seen reports that the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Chinese government proposed to the Russians for party talks. There's been some denial but it would not be surprising to me if China pushed for four party talks. That's how we address diplomacy in the late 90s because the signatories to the armistice were, technically it was of course the US, PRC and North Korea. Singapore refused to sign but the four party talks brought South Korea in. That has advantage for China because Japan's not in it which with the current Moon government raises the possibility that the US could be rather the isolated party in the process but also it's attractive because it is aimed at a peace treaty and why is a peace treaty attractive? Well as Yun Sun pointed out for China war tension is bad. I mean that's not surprising but also a peace treaty negotiation would dilute the growing integration of the US Japan and US Japan ROK trilateral and US ROK alliances. If you have a peace treaty process underway then you have a much stronger basis to argue that the US ROK or US Japan military exercises should be downgraded to keep the momentum going or that there shouldn't be two bombers participating or perhaps that further missile defense deployments are not necessary. So peace treaty on the surface is useful but a peace treaty also will build momentum against the deterrence measures that the US is taking with its allies. Might still be worth it depends on what you get back but the most likely thing we would get back from North Korea is a pledge to work towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula which I heard when in negotiations in North Korea going back some years and all that that means is North Korea wants us to end our hostile policy which means our nuclear umbrella, our deployments, our sanctions. There's not much there there. So yes there are some good reasons why China would want that which is diplomacy is better than war but there are other reasons that are probably not in US interests and are particularly not in Japan's interests. And it also seems like you're making point that denuclearization and a peace treaty doesn't necessarily equate with reunification. It may be one step towards but it's not certainly. There is a clear division within South Korea and within Northeast Asia on this question. Within South Korea the left believes that there's an incremental step towards unification that begins with a peace treaty and then moves towards confederation and largely preserves North Korea. That is China and Russia's view. The conservatives in South Korea of course have the opposite view which is a peace treaty is a gift to a nuclearized Kim Jong-un and designed to weaken US alliances which is the predominant view in Japan. And I think there are people in the audience who might disagree. I think it's the mainstream view in the US but not unanimous. So all of this diplomacy in the next few months will have an influence on sort of which one of these tracks the geopolitics of Northeast Asia might head. I suspect John Bolton and General Mattis and others or you know where they're gonna be on this one. The wild card that makes it all interesting is where is Donald Trump on these questions? Right and the third view would be the sort of the left view in Korea which is that denuclearization and a peace treaty eventually leads to some sort of unification whether it's a confederate state or something down the road. But always with Kim Jong-un's three steps to unification there's always kicking the cam down the road. It's the right in Korea that's usually more enthusiastic about unification but that's because they want the North Korean regime to go away. There's not a lot of room in the middle. Yes, Professor Kim, so based on this conversation what do you think South Korea and President Moon can do to allay China's concerns about the direction of the Korean Peninsula and where we're gonna be heading over the next two months? Moon Jae-in government's primary concern is to reduce kind of tension and then also maybe avoid the kind of military conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. So at the highest moment of tension and Moon Jae-in really, you know, arduously are proposed and then a kind of South Korea's preaching role. I do not think North Korea really anticipates that South Korea play that kind of role but eventually North Korea accepted it. And then so South Korean people, the Seoul and the Jong-un really persuade the North Korean side to come into the table with the United States. And so now South Korea is playing a kind of preaching role but I do not think this is not enough. And South Korea tried to maybe have a role of idea banks and then also provide certain procedures in the process. And otherwise, I do not think the other countries were fully prepared for the next steps and process, including the United States. So I urge the South Korean government to prepare for the much more detailed plans and then also the suggestions and then also the United States, China, and then as well as North Korea and to come together and then to first to see what kind of conditions and what kind of common grounds we can have. And this is the South Koreans, they are kind of facilitating a role. As you see, South Korea's kind of middle power are still limited capabilities to pull the conclusion. So the role of the United States is the most important and then also I respect the Chinese law as well. And so as Wang Junsheng argued that the finding common grounds between the United States and China will be very important and critical to draw a kind of positive conclusion for the way of doing the graduation. Thank you. Professor Kim, I agree with you. And I think South Korea has played a very much unappreciated role in allowing the diplomacy to advance. I like the analogy that Ambassador Joseph Yoon uses, which is this all sort of like high school dating. So it's about who calls the other person first. And in this situation you needed this intermediary to go between sort of a friend, to go between the two countries and bring them together. Because I don't think it would have happened. I don't think North, certainly North Korea has wanted to meet with the US and at the highest levels before, but again it was a sort of a unique confidence of events and a strong role played by South Korea. So at this point we'll open it up for questions. Please state your name and affiliation and try to limit it to a very brief question, starting off with the gentleman right there. I'm a peer-humped intel analyst and a former diplomat. One superb way to be clobbered by a strategic surprise is to not consider all the possibilities. One excellent way to kick the can down the road would be for China to depose the Kim regime and establish a Vichy or kissling regime of its own, trucking all the missiles and centrifuges and long-range rockets back to China and maybe even closing some of the Kuala Lumpur. Why when we list all the possibilities, do we not consider that possibility and make some minimum preparation for that possibility? So your question about why we don't consider the possibility of China deposing Kim Jong-un. So I think Kim Jong-un considered that possibility, which is why he killed Zhang Zong-Tek and had his half-brother Kim Jong-nam assassinated. And for the rest of us, it may have seemed a little far-fetched that China would do this. I have to confess, when I heard these proposals over the years, I thought it was unrealistic, but apparently it was realistic enough that Kim Jong-un wanted to make sure it would never happen. It shows you how limited China's influence is in some ways directly into Pyongyang, even though China has at a large level potentially huge influence because it provides so much food and fuel. I think if you had independent unification and so on and so forth aside, I think if you actually had an unraveling of the regime that in the breach, in the moment of the crisis, the US and China would find a lot of common tactical interests controlling WMD and perhaps trying to midwife a new regime in Pyongyang to prevent larger war, things that are very hard to talk about now, but in a crisis might prove areas of common interest. That said, I think the Chinese hand was severely curtailed by the elimination of their most important proxies in the North Korean system. I think China sometimes used that kind of tactic and then even though it is not revealed by the official media, but the maybe local media, sometimes mentioned about Kim Jong-un and then Chinese 2-3 year old kind of, so it really touched the nerve of Kim Jong-un and then also the possibility of removal of Kim Jong-un if this kind of trouble continues. So this is a kind of tactic, but if you really make a decision to remove the Kim Jong-un and then China is not confident of the consequences and so China cannot use that kind of, but they still use that kind of card. It'd be interesting to see how China, if that ever would happen, how they would justify that given their principle of non-interference, but that's a theory I've heard as well. Next question, lady over there. Thank you, a Siyang reporter from Voice America. Since Professor Green is here and since Prime Minister Abe is in the United States, I think it's fair for me to ask a couple of questions related to Japan. So first question, what are on Prime Minister Abe's agenda when he meets with President Trump and can he succeed? The second question is, if Japan is left out and it seems to me that Japan is left out, so what are the high stakes for Japan on North Korea issues? Thank you. I feel like I have to defer to you on that. Well, Prime Minister Abe showed the rest of the world's leaders how to develop a good relationship with Donald Trump. So the most important thing he has to achieve is to demonstrate to the world, but especially to the Japanese public and media, that it was worth it and that he still has that good relationship and Donald Trump will listen to him. Because as you know, Prime Minister Abe's on precarious political ground back home because of, there are small scandals, but basically it's just fatigue of the Japanese voter with a Prime Minister who's been quite strong in an office for a while. A good outcome for him would be if President Trump announced publicly he was going to raise the abductee issue, which I think will probably happen. And if President Trump agreed to keep pressure on North Korea until there are concrete verifiable and irreversible dismantlement steps, CVID. We used to say that in the Bush administration. Concrete steps by North Korea, not just promises of peace treaties or denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. If he can get the president to state those two things, it will be a success and it will help him at home. If he can, it'll hurt him. And then the other part is steel and aluminum tariffs where I don't think Abe will petition the president to give Japan an exemption. Japan's the only US ally that didn't get exempted despite Secretary of Defense Mattis and other national security officials saying we should. But the administration's put Abe in a box. They said if you want the exceptions, you have to agree to a bilateral FDA. And so he can't because it looks like he's caved to pressure. So we'll see what happens on that. The president's musing about rejoining TPP may given out where the prime minister could say yeah, we'll talk about a bilateral FDA and also TPP possibly, but the president and the administration's kind of put him in a box on that one. So it's pretty important for him as he navigates a very tough political climate at home. It was Korea passing last year, China passing earlier this year and now sort of Japan passing. Just to follow up on the second question, what would be the lesson learned for Japan given it's feeling maybe right now of being sort of on the outside looking in? We'll see if Japan stays on the outside looking in. I think Abe still has the best relationship personally with Donald Trump of any leader in Asia. And we'll see if that pays off. If it doesn't, and if Abe gets in trouble and if he doesn't run for a third term as head of the party, the LDP, and if he's replaced by somebody like Ishiba, Shigeru Ishiba, Ishiba-san's general trajectory wouldn't be so different from Abe, but his rhetoric is much more critical of Donald Trump. So the lesson might be, if you have a new leader, stand up to Donald Trump. I don't think that will make for very successful US-Japan relations and would be a boon for Pyongyang, but that might be the lesson people draw if this goes badly. Professor Sha. Yeah, I'll phone Sha. Yeah, phone Sha, no other university. My question is to Dr. Green. Is it all possible for Mr. Trump to tell Kim Jong-un that it is okay that you have nuclear program, but okay, I mean US accept your nuclear status, but no proliferation, no provocation. I think probably Chinese is okay with that. So what's your view that what's the problems that the United States could not just acquiesce and say, okay, you have nuclear program now. So by no provocation, no proliferation, thank you. So you're talking about basically the three, Sig Hecker's three no's, no more weapons, no new weapons, no proliferation, and do you think President Trump may offer that to Kim Jong-un? So as a general rule for pundits in Washington these days, when you're asked a question that begins, is it possible that Donald Trump would? It's always safe to answer yes, it's possible. I think that's why Abe in particular is so nervous about this summit, and I would guess John Bolton and a lot of people inside the administration are nervous about this summit. The President has become quite successful with his political base of spinning what he does as a victory. And I could imagine a scenario where he says Kim Jong-un has promised not to transfer weapons abroad, and he's promised not to test ICBMs anymore, and he's promised to talk about denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and I've promised to talk about a peace treaty, and that would be severely criticized by most people who've worked in North Korea diplomacy in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans. It would be seen as a real slap in the face for Japan. It wouldn't be implemented though, and the reason is because how would you verify it? I mean the North Koreans have always balked at verification, and so I suspect that within the administration, the people implementing sanctions would not back off at all, and sanctions would continue. It would take some pressure off China, probably, and it would be extremely disheartening for Japan because one of the things Abe will tell Donald Trump, I'm sure, is any agreement, he said this publicly in Japan, any agreement that rewards North Korea for stopping tests of missiles that can hit the U.S., but leaves missiles that can hit Japan in place would be very bad for Japan, and it would, I mean the threat would be one problem, but really what it would show is an end of the Trump-Abe honeymoon and a real crisis of confidence in Tokyo about whether the U.S. is willing to go to the map to stand by Japan in crises. It would be seen as a real sell-out. The media would portray it that way and be devastating for Abe, and I could see the President possibly doing that, which is why this Abe meeting is so critical today. I'm not predicting that'll happen, but yes, it could happen. I don't think it would solve the North Korean nuclear problem, by the way, but it is one scenario. Let's go way back there. Gentlemen in the glasses. I'm Junho Kim, visiting scholar at the George Washington University. A question for Dr. Kim. If we consume, there is a possibility of the change of the Cold War structure on the Korean Peninsula in the future. In what direction the South Korea's military should be reformed? I think this is a really difficult and tricky question, and I really support the kind of South Korean military reform from the defensive posture to offensive posture, because South Korean's whole military preparation is based upon the reliance of the U.S. weapon system and also structure, which is basically much more aggressive than South Korea's position in the base. But now, under the uncertainties we face, if everything is against South Korea's fate, and then we have to have a bottom line, which is we have our own defensive system, which bears kind of offensive capabilities. So that's why we are pursuing silently kind of military reforms to make our whole structure into much more mobile and then our offensive, and then also under the threat of nuclear weapons, how to utilize our conventional capability and scientific advantages to deter North Korea's aggression without projecting nuclear weapons. If we lose the kind of confidence of U.S. war alliance, maybe South Korean people ask the Korean government to prepare for the kind of nuclearized states. It's a kind of a natural source, a kind of a natural way, but still we have a kind of confidence in the U.S. alliance and also that we don't want to pay so much cost to go for nuclear. And so under the kind of circumstance, we have to have a confidence in the U.S. war alliance as well as our own preparation, traditional way. So that's why South Korean government really launched a kind of military reform now and to change the kind of. We have time for three more questions. So gentlemen, the first row right here. Thank you. Mitsui Onakai Foundation. I have a question for Kim Son. The Korean peninsula belongs to Korea, North and South, not to China, not to Japan or anybody. So my question is, what is or are the President Moon's vision for his country and for North Korea or Korean peninsula, whichever you prefer to say it? Both short term goal and long term. Can you talk about that? Thank you. President Moon's goal is quite obvious. The short term goal is to stabilize Korean peninsula and then also they open the kind of a space for common grounds between two careers and among other countries. Any other countries relate to the issues. And then but longer term goals, we are not pursuing a kind of a Korean unification by means of a military or kind of an urgent way of the attitude. Basically we see the much more broader sense of cooperation in the region. And then we are living in a kind of a nation-state system now but the world has been changed to be much more regional and to be much more global and there's so many issues coming up. And then if we pursue the unification and there is tremendous trouble and not just I mean by means of a military or just obsession against the will of the other. So maybe it takes time and then we can find the other ways of unification. And so we have to promote the cooperation, broader sense of not only between the North and South Korea but also the region like Pan-Yellow Sea and also Pan-North East Asian and then the kind of and the nine broad and then even to global. This is our dream and the two coexistence and co-prosperity. So this is what the Mungi government pursuing. Hi, my name is Justin Lewis. I'm a student in Georgetown Security Studies program. Question for Dr. Green. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what steps, what non-military steps you might see China try to implement to delay or hamper the unification process and assuming regime changes off the table as you had discussed before. It's an interesting question because if Beijing were to take active measures to obstruct the unification process it would badly damage its relationship with Seoul. And already public opinion about China is rather negative in South Korea. So there are limits on what China can do to visibly obstruct and that's why the term independent unification is so useful. When a Chinese official first told us the South Korean National Security Advisor our position is independent unification. The South Korean government was elated because it sounded so good until they read the fine print. In general terms I think efforts to encourage movement towards a dialogue between the US and TPRK which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing but a dialogue that reduces the pressure on the North. I think China's sweet spot for the foreseeable future would be one in which North Korea stops doing provocative tests, ICBMs and nuclear. And the US, okay US-Japan alliances slow down deployment of missile defenses and other military actions. And not expecting North Korea will abandon nuclear weapons in any verifiable way but just enough to sort of keep the hope alive, keep the dialogue process going. There was a joke in the US government a few years ago that PRC didn't stand for People's Republic of China that stood for Please Remain Calm. And so now that's not nefarious, that's in China's interest for all the reason Yoon Sun said but it also would have the effect of slowing the pressure on North Korea. China will put a lot of pressure on North Korea when it, in my experience, when it perceives the US is possibly going to use force or US, ROK, Japan, security, cooperation, missile defense, strategic bombers and so forth that military side is ramping up or because we're when North Korea takes steps that are deeply provocative, one or the other. And so tactically China's always trying to get both sides to calm down, to keep the process going with the expectation that tomorrow will be a better day for China's influence. That's not a bad thing, the diplomacy does have a role. I don't wanna suggest it doesn't but it puts an imperative back on the US to make sure that Beijing always remembers there are consequences for North Korean behavior that may not be so good for China either. And therefore whatever the president does with Kim Jong-un, I hope unless there are, well, there's not gonna be a real verifiable denuclearization. So it should not be accompanied by a decrease in US deterrence policy and posture. I just wanna make a quick comment on that. I think people talk about how China will delay the unification as if the unification is a blanket term. It also depends on what the scenario of unification and I think the scenario that you're probably alluding to is there's an internal instability or collapse of North Korean regime that how will China delay the unification process based on absorption by South Korea. But I think in that scenario, the Chinese interpretation is even if there's a regime while say internal instability of North Korea doesn't mean that North Korea as a sovereign country or as a sovereign state suddenly loses its legitimacy to exist. So if it's an internal political coup in North Korea then the regime will be replaced by another possibly a political faction. So I think the assumption that an internal instability in North Korea will automatically lead to unification is not necessarily a legitimate one. Then if it's unification based on the integration between North Korea and South Korea, it may not be against China's national interest. And if it is indeed based on the equal footing between North Korea and South Korea, North Korea will not be most likely not be okay with a future of unified Korea being US ally. So that will address China's concern about the future role of the United States on the Korean Peninsula. So it may not be against China's interest and China may not delay it. Can I just quickly add, I think that's exactly right, but I don't know very many Chinese scholars who really believe there's a scenario where Pyongyang and Seoul peacefully and happily, both of their constitutions and their raison d'etre is based on the other not existing. And unification under their terms. So it is true, but I think it's a little convenient too. It's a bit of an alibi for Chinese policy and scholars. Because I'm sure you talk to probably more than I do to Chinese scholars and officials who debate this, but very, very few actually could imagine that scenario, let alone Korean or American scholars or North Korean scholars probably for that matter. So that's the catch 22 I'd say. I agree with you, but that's the fine break. One last quick question, hopefully from a woman. Great, right there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the excellent panel. So I have two quick questions. My first question is for Dr. Kim. So I was wondering, because I'm curious because the South Korea is currently dealing with such a delicate, complicated relationship with both China and the US. So I was wondering does South Korea really want those influential powers to get involved in this process of unification? And my second question is for Dr. Green. Do you think the US-China cooperation on this Korean Peninsula issue has been successful? If not, because I don't feel like China and the US really trust each other. If not, are there any efforts that both countries could make in order to better cooperate on this issue? Thank you. Current Korean government is not naive and because of their experience in the Nomean period. And so they're gonna reduce the tension and then do some positive role in reducing the kind of tension and the possibility of outbreaking war. But South Korea really, one is to make the North Korea sure that we don't want to observe your, but we need to coexist and call a plus-plus region. And then also we want to make sure the United States and China and then create the kind of established, the kind of new system in North East Asia and then provide us a kind of more opportunity to be plus-plus and to communicate and cooperate. This is our vision. And then otherwise, as a middle power, as I mentioned before, five guys, by formidable, we cannot handle them. And then so South Korea is the kind of, we put the first step and then so we need cooperation with the other. So this is our ambition not to be so much ambitious, but anyway, we help as a kind of a plan or what you mentioned and then the kind of role. But of course, this is our problem and so we have to provide the kind of details based upon our own interest as well. And so anyway, this is what we are doing. And then, and also China is a kind of a reality to us. And as Michael Green mentioned, and it's economic interdependence between these countries and so huge. And so we have to also take care of the China as a kind of a stakeholder on the Korean Peninsula and then also the United States, of course, we don't want to see any establishing the empire of China. And then South Korea is really keen to the kind of China's every inch of moves. And then I frequently visit the Beijing almost every month and to watch what they are doing. So anyway, but what we want is there to have a better relationship with China as well as the other countries and create better environment. This is our goal. I would say actually that US-China cooperation on the North Korea problem on balance is good and has improved. I mean, I remember in 2000, I think it was 2002 when I was working in the Bush administration, President Bush told Jiang Zemin about the North Korean nuclear program, the HEU program and so forth. Jiang Zemin's answer was China is not associated with the North Korean nuclear program, which meant China had nothing to do with it, which actually wasn't true. If you go back in history, China has a little bit of DNA in the North Korean nuclear program. But what he really meant was China's not gonna get involved. It's your problem, give the North Koreans what they want. And you know, China, US pushed hard for this, but China hosted the six-party talks in the Security Council now. China's usually on our side, not usually less than we want, but usually agreeing to sanctions. China's implementing sanctions much less than we want, but implementing them on balance. I think that US-China cooperation on North Korea has been positive. It has not been enough to stop North Korea, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't worth doing. The strategic mistrust is growing between US and China. I think that's structural to a large extent, almost inevitable. It will probably make North Korea cooperation harder. You heard that from all of us, but I still think that more can be done. I think the US and China can do a lot more in the tactical area. I think how we deal with W and D, how we deal with North Korean terrorist acts, frankly, attacks like the one on Kim Jong-un and so forth, there are areas in tactics and management of the North Korea problem and the consequences of North Korea's programs, where the US and China could probably do more at a tactical level. I think at a strategic level, we could have a much more effective dialogue with China if the US could be more predictable. I know that's not easy now. Some people think the way to get more strategic trust with China is to have a grand bargain when we agree on certain things on the Korean Peninsula. No US troops north of the DMZ, independent unification, yada, yada, yada. I think that's a useless endeavor, frankly, that these big principles are gonna be counterproductive. There's a very strong chance that if we do this, Japan, our ally will be deeply anxious, but Korea would be anxious too about the US and China determined in the future of the Korean Peninsula. I think the best way to have a productive strategic dialogue with China is to have more predictability in our alliances, frankly. And when the administration beats Japan up on aluminum steel and Korea on everything from dishwashers to chorus, unpredictability can be off-putting for an adversary. However, one of our great strengths as a nation is our alliances and unpredictability is really off-putting for your allies and weakens our hand in dealing with China. It makes it harder for us to have the kind of strategic dialogue. If we were steady on things like trade and alliances, and if we had senior people with that background, they could sit down with the Chinese side and have a much more productive dialogue about how to make sure that the Korean Peninsula is an area where we don't turn towards conflict and where we manage the threats that we both face. We're not in that environment right now, but I do think there's a prospect for more cooperation, actually. And the way to get there is not some G2. The way to get there is for us to mind our overall Asia strategy and align with our allies and then go to China and talk about the Korean Peninsula knowing full well the equities of Korea and Japan in the process, but not representing them. Before we thank the panelists, I wanna invite everyone to stick around for lunch in the Great Hall, where Ambassador Mark Lippert will be giving a keynote speech. You can get to the Great Hall either through this door down here or the door up top and then we'll have volunteers take you down the stairs back to the Great Hall. Thank you so much. Please join me in thanking our panelists. Check, check, check, check, two, two. Good afternoon, everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started with our keynote, our luncheon keynote today. My name is Oriana Schuyler, Master, I'm an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University, one of the co-organizers of this conference. It's my great pleasure to introduce Ambassador Mark Lippert as our luncheon keynote today. Ambassador Lippert is currently the Vice President of International Government Affairs at Boeing. Prior to that, as most of you know, he was the US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. He has also served in a number of senior positions in the Department of Defense, including as Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and as an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. It was in that position that I actually first met Ambassador Lippert. He was kind enough to meet with me at the Pentagon when I was there, I think, as a second lieutenant, which I always think says a lot about people in important positions who make time to meet, mentor, and counsel those below them. Ambassador Lippert also served in the White House as Chief of Staff to the National Security Council and in other senior staff positions in the United States Senate. Ambassador Lippert is also a veteran. He's been mobilized to active duty with the United States Navy from 2009 to 2011 as an intelligence officer, and this included a deployment to Afghanistan. From 2007 to 2008, he deployed as an intelligence officer with SEAL Team 1 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. For all of his service, both as a civilian and as in the military, he's received a number of awards and decorations for example, he received the Bronze Star Medal for his service in Iraq, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Basic Parachute Dispatch. He's also the recipient of the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award and the Department of the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award. Most importantly, as a fellow Stanford graduate myself, he graduated from Stanford with a BA in political science and holds an MA in international policy studies from Stanford as well. He has studied Mandarin Chinese at Beijing University and obviously since I just heard him when we were having lunch speaks Korean as well. So please join me in inviting Ambassador Lippert to the stage for his keynote remarks. I will thank you captain now, I guess. Been promoted and professor and holder of many titles and real honor to be here today and thanks again to Georgetown and USIP for putting on a great conference. I got to hear a little bit of the panel before and I understand there was a really interesting discussion about Chinese views on unification and really, again, I think speaks to the work that USIP and Georgetown are doing on this issue. Let me also say I'm a little down this morning. Dusan, my favorite Korean baseball team was beaten soundly by the Hanwha Eagles so I'm a little down but Dusan was on an eight game winning streak literally every day, my excuse is it helps me with my Korean language but I do wake up virtually every morning and watch Dusan on the neighbor app. I highly recommend it, it keeps me close to South Korea. I think the challenge of giving a talk like this is the wide variety and deep expertise of folks in this room. I think there are some people who know just a heck of a lot more about this subject in me. There are folks who like General Pio, like Jaws over there, experts on military issues that they've forgotten more about military strategy and tactics than I will ever know. So what I thought I would do here is just do about a 20 minute kind of primer overview to just level set and then really get into a Q and A because I think that's where the value is in these is really the audience experience and really inviting comments, not just questions because I think this is an environment, especially with I'm looking out at the folks here, you just can learn a lot and that's what this really, this forum's all about. So let me dig in, try to do about 20 minutes like I said and why don't I start with something that I think is often overlooked but incredibly important in all of this. It's the neighborhood, the neighborhood in which this is all operating and people often wanna go right to the US and North Korea and sort of don't necessarily take into account the context in which, the regional context in which this is happening. Let's just go through the neighborhood and I know some of this is self-evident and obvious but it's always I think important to remind us why this issue is so important. One of the reasons it's so important is the neighborhood in which it is unfolding. First, if you're around foreign policy circles long enough people know one of, if not the most important foreign policy issue that you deal with is nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons policy. It is in many respects, there's a reason people who are expert in this are called theologians. That is the status in which this part of foreign policy is held. And in this issue are three of the world, nuclear weapons states, three of the five declared nuclear weapons states. You also have North Korea obviously with its nuclear weapons program. That's why we're here and then you have a lot of countries, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, nearby that could break out as necessary. On the economy this really is the flight deck of the world's economy. The United States, China, Japan, Korea, four out of the top 15 economies right there so if you have a disruption in this neighborhood it's not gonna just be regional, it's not gonna just be in Asia, it's gonna be global. Third point people often overlook is look at the treaty alliances in the neighborhood of the five treaty allies we have in Asia. Two are right there obviously within close proximity. The Philippines not far away. 80,000 U.S. troops in proximity. The world's only U.S. forward deployed aircraft carrier. We also have our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act as well. And so that is also, there's a lot of commitment there by the United States. It's obviously it's the other thing too that people often forget. It's a hub and spoke alliance system. It's not a NATO, it's not a collective security architecture so that complicates things in a way in terms of the way the U.S. has to maneuver through these different alliances. There are also critical bilateral relationships. Look at Beijing, look at Moscow. These are important, often complex, sometimes difficult issues for the United States and then locally you have really deep, often unresolved or under-resolved territorial and regional issues that I think add to the difficulty, the degree of difficulty or so just, I just wanted to set that up at the outset. The second thing I wanted to do quickly is just go through my own personal assessment of where the DPRK is just in terms of its leadership and we can get into their motivations later I think in the Q and A but just a little bit of a sort of a scene setter at first. I do think Kim Jong-un is in control. I do think he has control of the regime through a number of different instruments, the family name, the elite's fear of the regime collapsing and the whole hang together, hang separately, colloquialism you hear. I do think that he is a rational actor on the scene. I think there's an open question that's always interesting dealing with any country of how he perceives the world, how he perceives the United States and I think we're gonna get a lot more clarity on that in the coming days with the Inter-Korean Summit and then by the end of June. That's an interesting question. Thus far up until this point, really the last month or so, what has been interesting is he has looked very different from his father. He has been much more black and white. He has shown much less faith in diplomacy and negotiations and I think if you talk to folks you'd often get into a pretty interesting conversation. You would get into this conversation of, well, is he really smart and perceptive? In other words, is he essentially accumulating as much fissile material, nuclear missile technology to set himself up for a bargain or a negotiation or is he missing opportunities in terms of diplomatic outreach? One could argue the 2015 aborted trip to Russia, the lack of conversation with Beijing, the failure to follow through on inter-Korean talks in 2015 with the Pakenet regime. Is he missing opportunities to otherwise divide the coalition that is against him that has proven pretty robust in terms of sanctions? So I think the jury was still out and it still is out but that's often the debate you'd get into. Is he just avoiding smaller, what you would say smaller negotiations to save up for a big one or is he in the regime missing opportunities, not seeing those opportunities or just doesn't believe in diplomacy? And I think that's an interesting question as well. I've always said the last point I'd say is what I think is interesting here is, last two points is one, I felt he's in control, rational. My own belief though, the model he has built is hard to sustain over time, if not impossible. It's hard not to have no relationship with Beijing. It's hard to have your hard currency come way down dramatically. There are a whole host of other things but it always made me feel about a year ago that he was going to have to, the regime was probably gonna have to make some sort of diplomatic move relatively soon to address some of these shortcomings and I think one of the most interesting issues that they probably have to address are markets and information flow. We've seen that in terms of the book North Korea Confidential, it's review in the Chosunobo and the North Korean regime reaction to that which I think is a pretty interesting data point. So I have always felt that the model isn't necessarily sustainable. There probably needs to be some sort of diplomatic move. I think there's an open question as to whether or not this current round is that diplomatic move or not or if it's more of a stalling tactic, more on that later. Last, I think just again self-evident but what's interesting here in terms of the negotiations is the Kim Jong-un regime, the North Korean regime, especially over the last five years has made obviously nuclear weapons, the nuclear power status a key component of the regime and its legitimacy and I think that makes it a little less incompatible with some of the negotiating aims of the United States and the international community and we've seen recent comments in the press that the North Koreans are committed to denuclearization and I think that is a very interesting question which needs to be looked at in the coming days and weeks. Let me maybe just take a quick run through kind of the recent history and talk a little bit about I would say almost dramatic turn of events we've had over the last couple of months. You know, first there's the Olympics, right? Everybody followed that pretty closely. I think there's a question about the DPRK motivations here. I think, you know, first of all, I think they did wanna participate in the Olympics. I think there's some of that. Second, I think the field in terms of a liberal South Korean regime, a conservative United States presidency look very familiar. I think they also felt that there was very little cost to participating and in fact, it allowed them to test if the South-South split is alive and well, it allowed them to try to increase their popularity in the short term so there was a lot of benefit to participating in the Olympics and I think by most analysts' measures, they not only ran the play, they ran it pretty well in terms of the Olympics. It did give the South Koreans, I think, an important opening, an opportunity to I think express a certain degree of warmth, I think to test where the North Koreans are and to follow up and so then we have, we're quickly into the follow up meeting in Pyongyang between the South Koreans and the North and I think if you read the press carefully and you talk to South Korean friends during the meeting, the North Koreans committed to denuclearization, they agreed to let the US ROK exercises go forward and the South Koreans did make a strong point of emphasis on the need to remain firm on sanctions. I think there was also a recognition between the two Koreans, the two Korean sides that as important as inter-Korean talks are and as important and as sacrosanct is the peninsula is to the Korean people, that the United States had to be part of this equation and I think that's precisely what Moon Jae-in, President Moon was trying to do which was trying to bring the United States back to the table. What's interesting here is that there has not been a lot of direct statements or conversations by the North after this summit. You have a little bit, the language looks fairly familiar but you have on the other hand, you have the exercises did go forward and there seems to be some interesting private messaging that is unfolded here as well. So squaring that circle is important down the line as well. The only other thing I would say in terms of what I think the South Koreans are after here is obviously they want denuclearization talks, they are interested in de-escalation of tensions and possibly more engagement going forward. I think within the confines though that the South Korean side has been very clear about no preemptive reduction in sanctions and has taken I think a very pragmatic centrist line here. I think one of their also their overriding goals is to try to set up the US and the DPRK for a successful summit and I think what is really key in the inter Korean summit coming up is to find out where the DPRK is on some of their positions, what is their definition of denuclearization and how does the South Korean government then vector in and out of this conversation in the run up during and after the summit. Let me just come to a pretty interesting thing in terms of South Korea. You know, the president will be maneuvering in a very interesting political environment. I would say the Korean population is broadly supportive of Moon Jae-in's agenda and you look at his popularity, 60 to 70%. You know, from a guy who when he ran for president was at about 40, 45%. That's where he kind of moved. He's 30 points, 25 to 30 points above where he has been during the campaign. You have midterm elections in June which everybody is watching closely in South Korea. You have an opposition that does not seem to be unified and you know, the history of Korean politics in a grossly oversimplified way is the unified and organized side seems to win. And you look back at the last midterm elections, the conservatives look like they were headed for a super majority only to have public infighting break out, fall out and they were punished at the polls for it. The role of youth is interesting. I mean, I think it's widely reported here about the young Korean populations, I think skepticism about North Korea and you saw it in a little bit on the backlash of the hockey team decision. So I think it's a very interesting time in South Korean domestic politics and I think that's an important factor that a lot of people don't follow closely. Let me just quickly make a couple comments about the roles of the regional actor. I know we've had panel discussions on that here so I won't spend a lot of time on it but you know, I think the Chinese seemed in the short term, I think very pleased with the outcome in terms of getting folks back to the negotiating table. It seems like they're trying to figure out where they go from here in terms of the medium term and then longer term, I think I'm hoping that the panel solved the unification question in Beijing's mind but that's an interesting, tricky issue for them. You know, the Japanese I think were surprised. They felt a little isolated but I think now that you've got a summit coming between the president and the prime minister, I think that will be resolved pretty quickly and then, you know, the Russians are out there as well and that's an interesting question, their role in all of this. What does this mean, I think, for the US DPRK summit? I'm not here, I don't have answers, solutions. I think if I predicted it accurately I would be doing something else working in the financial markets because I would be a wealthy man but why don't I sort of go through and sort of say what I think's old, what I think's new and what are some of the key questions and outcomes. First, you know, what seems old is that, you know, first we're back in kind of talks with the North Koreans. Second, the language out of the North Korean, as I mentioned, does not seem all that new, a little bit new but mostly old. We are talking about denuclearization, the things that are out in the ether, our peace treaty, that's all old. That feels very, very familiar. And again, we will now be on the third iteration of the inter-Korean summit talks. That all seems kind of standard and has been out there. What's new, there's some interesting new things. First, obviously, you have the President at the United States meeting with the leader of North Korea for the first time. The size of the North Korean program is different. Sanctions pressure more severe than it's ever been. The exercises continuing, I think it's an interesting variable as well. The other thing too, and I think, you know, this was well laid out in the New York Times today, is that this is early in the President of the Republic of Korea's tenure. You think of when Kim Dae-jung, No Mi-hyun met. No Mi-hyun was almost out of office. Kim Jae-jung was latter in his term. So you have a possibility of repeat summits as well. And the South Koreans have already talked about that. You have public opinion in the Republic of Korea, as I mentioned, which is dramatically different from when the last time you had really inter-Korean summits in the No Mi-hyun or Kim Dae-jung administrations, you have, and then also you have, I would say, China's place in the world is very different than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago when this kind of a similar swirl happened. You have some interesting possible outcomes. You could have a good meeting that is largely symbolic. You could have a meeting that is symbolic with some substance, kind of in your punt, or you could have a framework that comes out. And you read, again, the South Korean statements today. I think they are hoping very much for the latter. Some sort of framework that puts together a grand bargain. Interestingly, of course, the U.S. and the North Koreans have been quite quiet on this. And I think that is really interesting is where are we headed with that? The risks are pretty self-evident. Obviously, if you have a bad meeting, a bad summit, it's hard to see where you go on diplomacy next. I think, you know, the good news is you do have a president of the Republic of Korea that's early in his tenure, but I think is resilient and committed to diplomacy. So that's less of a risk than it might otherwise be, but I think that is still out there. You have obviously the North Koreans making a meal of that internally, that in terms of their own propaganda. You have the fact that these opportunities don't come along very often, so you need to make the most of them. And then I think the question to me is what do you do out of this on sanctions? That's a really important variable going forward. So let me wrap up and just say, in the interest of getting to questions, couple of quick things. First, I think what, and I kind of touched on this earlier, but I just kind of wanted to, in conclusion, kind of give you some of the things that I am gonna be looking for as now someone, an analyst on the outside who's incredibly committed and interested in this, but obviously has no formal role. What I would say is first, how do we, even though we have seemingly incompatible long-term goals between the US and the North Koreans, can we find some sort of short and medium term agreement? And I think that's obviously an open question, but a very interesting one as well is how do you square the circle on different long-term goals in the short and medium term? And that's probably something that comes down to a lot of the definition of denuclearization and how that's interpreted. Second, what are the various negotiating strategies? Are we playing for time? Is this a real change? What is the timeline here? And I think that's obviously key. What is the appetite coming out of the summit for reduction of sanctions? I just view the sanctions as critical. I think they've been really important in getting the North to the table. They're really, I think, the most important piece of leverage. And so what's the appetite going forward? This comes to the next question is, can we get a better read on how much pressure Kim Jong-un and the North Korean regime is under at this point? That's a hard question, but will the two summits shed any light on that? And can we then vector and or change our negotiating strategy? Comes to the next question, which is, can Kim Jong-un's regime continue to sustain itself? This is not the 1990s with famine and collapse of the Soviet Union and post-Cold War, but it is an environment in which they are under really unprecedented sanctions pressure, which I've said before, and how much longer can they go on this? I've always felt personally that they've had to make a move, and the question is, is it shorter term, is it medium term, is it longer term? And related to that, is this, therefore, is this latest round in treaties by the North, is this a stall? Is this a play for time? Is it a play for hard capital? Or is this a real sea change in response to an international community that has really, I think, put a lot of unified around this question? And then last but not least, what I would say is, and this is the big black box that's going on right now, what are the outcomes of this flurry of diplomatic activity? And I think the more insight we get on that, what's gonna come out of the President-Prime Minister Summit? What's gonna come out of all of the talks that we've seen various and sundry reports about? Where is that going to lead us going forward? So those are kind of my universe of questions that I'm watching. It will be, nonetheless, something that will be interesting for all of us Korea Watchers to really, I think, dig into, analyze, really try to discern. But I think longer term, just coming back to the very first point I made about the region, this is incredibly important. It's an incredibly important moment in history. It's an incredibly important time. And I think that it's not just about Korea. It's not just about Northeast Asia. This is about the world. And the entire world was watching. And so let me end by saying, the stakes really are high here and really important for everybody. So with that, let me open it up to the questions. I prepare, I stand ready to be peppered, corrected, amended, told how wrong I am. But I just did want to level set everybody before we got into questions from this very, very esteemed and distinguished audience. Thanks. Well, thank you for those remarks. Before we open up to questions, I have a few of my own to get a little bit more out of you on some of the topics that you raised to potentially inspire more questions from the audience, which we'll do in probably the last half an hour or so of this session. So my first question is you began with the regional dynamics. And you ended with the regional dynamics about how important those are. And I was wondering from your point of view, what would really be game changers with respect to, for example, relationships, bilateral relationships between countries like South Korea and China or Russia and South Korea. And the basic premise of this question is to ask, what would be the ideal strategic environment for us to be able to resolve this North Korean nuclear issue? Yeah, it's a great question. And I guess this question takes me back to really the gambit that Pakenna made with Xi Jinping early in her tenure. I mean, you had this interesting dynamic where Xi Jinping for the first time in really modern Chinese North Korean relations came to Seoul before he visited Pyongyang. And that was a really interesting time because I think some thought, well, are we actually witnessing a fundamental realignment here? So I think what would be ideal going forward is obviously I think more alignment between Chinese, South Korean, and US, I would say short and medium term interests. I'm gonna be a realist here and say, look, our long term interests are something that are really big, really important. We've gotta hammer those out. Those are big, huge issues. We've got summits coming up in weeks and months. So I would say over time and the short and medium term issues, if we could see those three countries, obviously with our good friends, the Japanese involved, more of an alignment in those short and medium term goals. And I would hope that that would be a real outcome of some of this important diplomatic flurry that's going on right now. So this conference is about primarily the relationship between China and North Korea. And as someone who speaks a lot about that issue, I can never go through a conference or panel or something without someone asking me about Russia. And I never have really a good answer because as a China specialist, I don't really see Russia playing a big role. It seems like they're relatively uninvolved right now, at least. So do you think the United States should be promoting greater Russian involvement? Do you think they're gonna stay on the sidelines? And just in your experience as ambassador, is that assessment of Russian influence or involvement declining over time an accurate one? It's a great question. Well, where the Russians have really shown up in force is at the UN. Using their vote veto on the permanent five to I think influence and shape sanctions questions. And moreover, remind people that they are in the region, that they are in a voice that needs to be accounted for. So what I would say is, I think it's important to your point not to forget about the Russians, to make sure that they are accounted for, engaged with early. Often it's the Koreans and the Japanese who have better success these days in terms of engaging with the Russians. So perhaps that's an important role that those two countries can take on. More broadly, I think the trick here is going to be, for the first time you have a US DPRK kind of bilateral dynamic at the leader level going. And then how does that coming out of that translate into more multilateral diplomacy, which I think will be ultimately required to solve this. That's I think point one. The second point is then to add to that is how does that square with, as I mentioned in the speech, really an early in his or her tenure president of the Republic of Korea having these meetings and going forward if you have repeat inter-Korean talks. So how do you square the circle between the US DPRK bilat? How do you square the circle between the inter-Korean talks and then make sure the neighbors and other regional players that will be important in this conversation are accounted for and engaged with. So we have the inter-Korean talks coming up. So it's a very exciting time that every week something exciting happens that then we have to rethink all of our assessments. So we won't hold you to your answer to the next question that I have, but I'm curious on what you think through this at least a diplomatic process, hypothetically what you think South Korea can live with in terms of an agreement. What is non-negotiable for South Korea? What do you think maybe the United States is willing to put on the table that the South Koreans aren't? And do you see any divergence in the views of the moon government versus elites versus the domestic public on this particular issue of what can be obtained through negotiations? Well, each of those questions is an all-day seminar run by Frank Aum that will be coming later. I guess what I would say, those are huge questions. I think what's, as I mentioned a little bit and I wanted to make sure it got in there because I know this is primarily about DPRK, China, but I mentioned in my speech and you touched on it in your last question is public opinion in the Republic of Korea which I just find incredibly interesting and I was having a conversation with Scott Snyder before and we were both kind of nerding out on it. Because it is a factor I think in a way that is again new on the scene and I think you look at the generational cleavages in their approach to North Korea and I think that is an interesting variable that is gonna be I think over time something that the Blue House will obviously have to account for. Like I said, I think right now they're in great shape, they're at 60 to 70% but what you've seen in South Korean politics if you study it is, the public opinion changes pretty quickly and two months is a long time in South Korean politics so I think that is gonna be something that is gonna have to be managed through just like any democracy but I think it's newish in terms of its complexity on the North Korean question that was a little more manageable I think in 20 years ago. I think you've gotten just more public opinion has sort of gotten more you know you almost look crystallized and almost bifurcated into different quadrants that is more complicated so that's point one. You know in terms of what I'm gonna come back to this again but I'm more having worked in the government the way I would be thinking on this is obviously you've got your long-term goals and you wanna have an idea of where you're going but right now given that you had this almost these summits come at you in such rapid succession I think my short-term and medium term objectives is to figure out what we can do in that time period to both advance our key interests, keep momentum going and then make real progress on the denuclearization and missile questions and I think that's where the trade space is on all this. What can they live with? I would say you know look I think the most important thing I think to the South Koreans is having a good summit holding firm on sanctions questions, deescalating tensions but then I think trying to set up the US and the North Koreans for a successful summit and as a footnote here I would just say I do think the South Korean government has really held the line. I think surprising some commentators on exercises on sanctions on certain areas so that I think will be kind of their minimum which is like holding the line continuing to make clear to the North Koreans where the red lines of the international community are but also then getting into a real negotiation over denuclearization and what that looks like. So in terms of holding the line I've heard that too that the South Koreans have done a really good job of you know stating what their position is and sticking to what we heard today. I think on the second panel about in the face of Chinese pressure even to sign something saying that they were against alliances they were unwilling to sign that and there's another new factor in this whole dynamic and that's the current US administration. And when people discuss the coming summits and talks there's also concern and it seems to be exaggerated one way or the other that either these talks are kind of a pretext for some sort of limited military conflict or President Trump is gonna give away the store and sign away some agreement with Kim Jong-un that includes withdrawal of all US troops from the Korean Peninsula because that fits with his narrative of not being so involved overseas. Outside of the United States so are these things that the South Koreans are worried about either the sort of use of talks as a pretext for military options or that the United States is gonna make some sort of agreement that's not much of their benefit? I mean it feels so I was in South Korea a couple weeks ago and you know just on vacation actually and you know opinion was all over the map you know I mean this in a way you know the fact that there was I think such a surprise about the summit it really befits a favorite saying of mine or a friend of mine that told me that I like to repeat and you know that way everybody says South Korea is the land of mourning calm and my friends had know that it was just like my first month as ambassador goes they say it's the land of mourning calm and what you gotta remember it's the land of mourning surprise and so it was kind of befitting that at about seven o'clock Eastern time right in the mourning period of in South Korea you know there you have the national security advisor and the Republic of Korea ambassador United States making what was largely a surprise announcement about the summit so what I would say is I think people are still kind of sifting through this issue in terms of what it means but I do think that by and large South Korean public opinion has turned more skeptical to the North I think it does augur well for holding the line on sanctions and for I think a pretty clear eyed view of the North Koreans and what their objectives are so I think if you're asking me where the South Korean population is I think it's generally supportive of talks I think generally it's but generally you look over especially over the last seven, eight years it's generally a more clear eyed view of the North than its objective so that will be I think an interesting dynamic which the Blue House and to a lesser extent the United States and others are gonna have to navigate through giving away the store preemptive sure like there are always voices on every side of the spectrum who like to make news but I think most people are kind of in a meaty middle of let's wait and see let's see what happens let's get on the other side of this and then we'll make a judgment as to where to go from here. So one of the big factors about where this is gonna go is North Korea's own objectives and one of the big aspects of the debate is whether Kim can give up his nuclear weapons and stay in power I guess more importantly does Kim believe he can give up his nuclear weapons and still stay in power? Yeah and I think that's really it comes back to your first question or your question that you just asked which is part of why there's so much speculation or why there is a little bit of uncertainty or I would say unformed opinion that seems more fluid is nobody really knows exactly what the North Koreans want the language as I said looks a little old in some of their statements that leads one to the classic conversation about what the definition of denuclearization is or is not and may include on the other hand you have sort of interesting new elements right and you talk to people in this town a couple of months ago and they said well this is all just a big setup and this was a way to force a split in the alliance and to have basically the North walk out during the exercises and resume test that has not happened yet so I think it's a pretty interesting sort of conversation and to your point I again I think that's an incredibly important long-term question I'm sort of figuring out okay that question is something we have to address but if we got there that would be a really good thing if we were talking about single digits of possible nuclear weapons material and how do we manage the short and medium term I think is really what folks are focused on and that's where I would be sort of focused on with an idea of where I wanted to head long term but so my answer to your question is I do think that if you get there the environment is gonna look so differently it's really hard to make a judgment upfront on that but that's what would lead me back to the short and more medium term questions so in the short term right now we have the summits coming up, the diplomatic options the Trump administration is continuing at least for now the maximum pressure campaign in addition to introducing this new diplomatic element in discussing how this diplomatic element is gonna go down we've talked about the idea maybe Trump will give away the store or it'll fail or it can succeed we could get some sort of agreement for a timeline for longer term denuclearization maybe something short of it that's more of a freeze to the program but what do you think if you had to sort of predict or if you had to advise this administration about how to get the best outcome what can the United States do in this lead up to this summit maybe even during the summit following the summit to ensure that we get the best possible outcome? Yeah I'd say three things I mean this is all about leverage right at the end of the day so to me in the run up you're trying to maximize your leverage and so that includes three things first you know unify your allies, friends and partners right I think that's incredibly important make sure at its core that you and the South Koreans are aligned and then more than reach out to the Japanese you're obviously your treaty ally and then figure out your China play right and that's and then obviously not forget about the Russians but getting that is incredibly important I think in the short term I think the second thing that I would be doing and it related to one is making sure that you are as solid as possible on sanctions because I do think that that is your leverage that's what you're gonna have to trade away over time and sort of figure out what the game plan is there and then third obviously I think you're trying to sess out where the North Koreans are right and that's you know if these reports are true sessing them out through the direct G to G talks that are going on, sessing them out through the North South talks sessing them out through the inner Korean summit and I think that's incredibly important because again what's a big unknown here if you're the US coming into this is where exactly the North Koreans are what are their definitions and how is their continuity between the Kim Jong-un and his father's regime in terms of some of these policies or does this represent a sea change and a real opportunity to make rapid progress on some of these goals like denuclearization? Well thank you for answering all of my questions I think we have put forth a lot of interesting ideas and topics that will sparks of discussion so I'm gonna go ahead, we have a little bit over a half an hour to get to questions. When I call on you please wait for the microphone I know you, some of you will forget and I will remind you to introduce yourself and please make it a question versus commentary and I'll start over here. Hi my name is Jenna Gibson I'm with the Korea Economic Institute here in DC. I think the Trump and Moon administrations have made it clear that their primary goal is talking about the nuclear program to the exclusion of some other issues that might come up such as cyber, chemical, biological, even human rights so I'm wondering your thoughts on is that the right approach should be focused on nuclear first before digging into any of those at some point or what would be your advice on how to possibly integrate some of those other issues as well? Yeah it's a great question you think about it a lot and it's one of those that doesn't have a great answer other than I would say if it were me I would be on the denuclearization track it's the most, I think dangerous it's the most, I think imminent in terms of just how big the program is I think that's sort of how I define that I think that's where I would be I do think that the good news is on some of these other issues especially human rights now the conversation has been multilateralized a bit especially after the Kirby report all the UN action so you could on that issue you could put a lot of emphasis up front on the nuclear question while making sure your multilateral diplomacy was engaged on something like that the other thing that I think we haven't had a real serious conversation about in almost two decades is missile technology and that probably has to be brought in sooner rather than later as well so it's a really hard I think unenviable task to figure out how to prioritize those but I would probably put denuclearization at the top of the pile I'd focus directly on that that's where I think the international communities sanctions efforts are concerned is I think making progress on that is critical and I do tend to believe the theory that if you can make progress there it will unlock some of these other at least security questions in terms of bringing them in the human rights question I think is harder but incredibly important to have the conversation on and so that's why this sort of back of the envelope thinking would be how do you kind of structure your bilateral, your regional and then your UN more formal multilateral diplomacy to come in together simultaneously this gentleman over here I'm here for the analyst and a former diplomat closely related the most lethal weapon is not the nuclear weapons it is the prison camps which account for about four or five nuclear weapons worth of death so far we have zero chance of getting rid of those zero chance of getting rid of the entire biological infrastructure zero chance of getting rid of the entire chemical infrastructure zero chance of getting rid of all the missiles and zero chance of having IAEA inspectors run all over the country at will, uninhibited so what's the point I don't I don't believe in magical thinking what is the point why even go to this summit if there's zero chance of getting what you what you absolutely must have it's even more pessimistic for me you said your former diplomat yeah I mean I guess what you know we could have a discussion about you know that's I think it would it's an interesting conversation about whether you should you know should we have agreed to the summit or not right that's that's a whole nother but I guess what I would say we are we are where we are and going forward what what is the the probability of success but I you know it's an interesting question uh... that you know uh... that worth a discussion on right so uh... what is the point I think you know first I'll let me play devil's advocate I'll give you the positive side of the story right and I I guess I would say first you know look you just you get leaders in a room you never know you never know what's gonna happen uh... and maybe there is some sort of breakthrough uh... that's probably not a great chance but it's an interesting dynamic uh... second you know I think that the point is in the run-up to this uh... is I think some will argue that you will get a flurry of diplomacy and maybe some some issue will break free uh... and that's kind of why I got to the the different outcomes in the summit right you could have kind of just a meeting nothing comes out of it you could have kind of a meeting that you get a little substance or you could get a real framework out of this and I guess it's the smaller chance of getting a big framework out of this that I think excites a lot of people you know I'm less you know I'm less enthusiastic about just a summit for a summit's sake uh... but I do think that if you do feel that you if you're in the government you feel you can make some progress on some critical issues freeze maybe start a rollback and have a real conversation or real effort towards denuclearization that it's probably worth it um... hard question though I think your your your other points are really spot on right the the hard thing about this is the denuclearization issue is incredibly difficult but it's not the only issue out there right I mean there are so many tough issues with the North Koreans um... on this and how to how to figure out a way forward on any of those issues is really hard final point I'd say you know I had this conversation with you know I when I was ambassador and and it was um the north just wasn't interested in talking and you know the Obama administration was trying to figure out where to go and I had a former very senior diplomat the U.S. side come and just said you know we've got to we've got to start somewhere and that's there is some of that thinking that I think still permeates you know the state department and others is in terms of making an argument at least for a conversation and dialogue going forward so uh... I don't have a great answer for you on your question uh... but I all I can say is that I think there are real pros and cons with the summit um... but the fact of the matter is we're likely gonna have a summit and I think that the challenge for the U.S. government obviously I don't work for the government anymore is how to maximize your chances for success and minimize uh... the downside risks and that's probably what they're doing now the woman in the back hi my name is So-young Kim from Radio Free Asia so it could be a follow-up question regarding the upcoming summit between the U.S. and North Korea so a lot of experts I've talked to told me that like we don't see any specific conversation about the digital collage legislation and because they're probably just, you know, gonna talk they might bring up about it but like they're not really gonna talk about anything specific so in your opinion um... what kind of rear picture you can imagine when Trump and Kim Jong-un are actually sitting on the same table what do you think they are gonna actually talk about um... I know need you know if you would ask me this question about President Obama at least I would know new President Obama so I could give you some sort of answer I just don't know you know I just I just don't have a good uh... you know I've never met either one of them so it's impossible for me to answer that question I'll have the gentleman in the back and then we'll work our way around Good afternoon my name is Lee Jong-un, P.A. Student at American University my question is in your view how important is the location of the summit and as an outsider what location would you recommend for the summit? Yeah good question I mean you know I've run through this in my own mind and you know there's the obvious you know candidates are Sweden and Switzerland in terms of being the neutral nation states that still are extant up at the uh... you know the demilitarized and still have a formal role you know those are technically the UN side you know the North Korean sides I think it was the checks in the polls and they have since departed in that role so those two seem to be the most logical in terms of you know within this institutional framework that still exists coming out of the armistice and the Security Council resolutions that date back to the Korean War on the other hand you know I've seen the one that makes sense in the region in terms of you know proximity in terms of having a relationship with the North Koreans that is unique is Mongolia uh... that that I saw that makes a lot of sense in the Mongolians have always had that that kind of interesting relationship with the North Koreans and you know they're they're a country that has you know in terms of the US relationship has really grown exponentially over the last five to ten years as well so that that's intriguing as well uh... how much importance do I put to the locality I you know hard for me to say I I tends to be if you're not gonna have it in North Korea the United States the significance of it diminishes uh... in terms of the the importance of the location as an operative variable I think you know much more important is the negotiating positions the willingness to talk the definition so on and so forth it's something that's interesting that people like to talk about you know I think once the talks start the the more much more important things are just where the two sides are in terms of their alignment willingness to talk Junho Kim visiting scholar at the George Washington University uh... I guess you understand how dynamic uh... the South Korean politics is and there are many age cohorts that have a different understanding of America what measures can or should be taken to improve a mutual understanding between South Koreans yeah great question I mean this is you know I know everybody asked me about North Korea and it's it's obviously you know the topic that every you know folks are rightly uh... concerned about it are you ask me what my my real passion is it's really I'm interested in South Korean domestic politics in sociology right I mean it's just it's a really interesting thing that doesn't get I think enough attention everybody I'd be sitting there as ambassador I'll just tell you I mean again it's it's it's right the the the problem is a global problem it's a critically important problem historically uh... interesting moment so it's right to talk about the north but I would always be sitting in my office as ambassador and I get you know journalists or people visiting and they just they've asked me ten questions about North Korea and maybe a half a question about South Korea and I you know I always felt that you know South Korea is a huge important big country in and of its own self it just happens to be in a really a dynamic and interesting neighborhood surrounded by really really big countries uh... and I always said if you lop off South Korea and dropped it somewhere else in the world you would pay much more attention to it as a bilateral relationship so it comes to your question you know I you're exactly right in terms of you know you see these real cleavages in generations in South Korea and some people will attribute that to to the rapid uh... development and and rise in industrialization over a very short period arguably the most spectacular and quickest democratic development story in the history of the world right so so I think to get to your point here is that you do have very different views of the alliance of North Korea uh... of the world in the embedded in these generations you know and so I think your question is how do we make this better I think you know especially for the younger generation it's figuring out you know that the younger generation South Korea communicates in a very different way it's a lot more online just like the United States and how do you have that conversation through a completely different medium that you're used to with you know that probably the two older generations that they come before them and then I think on on the other two generations obviously you have very different experiences the older generations South Korea still you have the Korean War memories that's one that you still have to work on through a very I'd say more traditional lens and then I think that the 386th generation is interesting because it's it's changing right it's the 386th generation is in power now it's the probably the most dynamic in terms of where it was to where it is and so I think that's that's the one in terms of of how to communicate I think there I'm a big believer of kind of the the people to people diplomacy I'm a big believer of track two conversations I think my point here with especially with 386 is you got to get it out of the government to government channel that's an important you have to have a good government to government relationship but the relationship is so much bigger than just a g to g relationship that those other components have to be emphasized in order to I think make progress in understanding our our two peoples the young man up here front hi my name is Justin Lewis I'm a student in Georgetown security studies program what lessons would you take from the failure of the 1994 agreed framework that could be applied towards strengthening any future diplomatic agreement on denuclearization yeah it's a great question you know and you talk to those folks who have been around it and it's a really you know the history there is so important and something that you know we do have to learn from I guess you know a couple lessons first you know I think obviously and the world is very different from where it is where it was then where it is but I think you know if you looked at had you had to do it over again probably more consultation up front right I mean the whole it's well well publicized right but you know not having the South Koreans in the negotiations and then essentially handing them a bill for fuel oil that always created angst and problems that probably you know slowed down I think that's sort of I so I think the point comes to a little bit what we were talking about before using this time to make sure you are really aligned in your interest I think that's point one point two I think what what is interesting is it does show that the North Koreans you know if given the right set of circumstances can go down the road of negotiations but I think you know you can and I think this is the third big lesson that I always sort of take from it you know it's one thing to negotiate it's another thing to implement and it's another thing to adhere to the agreement and is there in that process of adherence and implementation attempts at renegotiation and I think that's something you just have to account for in your negotiating strategy up front is that you know it's one thing to negotiate with the North Koreans but their history especially now over the last 25 years has so clearly shown a proclivity to cheat and undertake a range of other problematic behavior that you almost have to figure out how to build that into your calculus as you're coming into the negotiating table final point I would say look there's a whole history here in terms of you know where South Korea and the United States were transition between two different administrations in the United States that's like an all day seminar that's really important history but you know if you're asking me the big lessons to try to boil all this down in a really short answer it's pre-consultation alignment up front it's factoring in you know it's the North Koreans at times will negotiate they have shown a proclivity to negotiate 2015 as well like on the demilitarized they were they negotiated very very rapidly but then again negotiation renegotiation implementation and adherence verification are critically important questions as well Stella Xu from Ronald College and one of the panelists for the morning session and I hope you don't mind sharing some of your personal journey in your official career so one is that you were in Korea still in a very pivotal like a moment and would you mind sharing like one positive side what is the what is the most like a accomplished moment that you have and also very inspiring to to you and the other side is that so what you have wished that you could do a little more or a little differently so being away from your office for a little bit so good question well first I you know I guess the thing I survived was Jaws General General Jaws is a retirement ceremony which I think was freezing cold I'm joking I'm joking no what I would say it's a point that I was just going to make in a joking way is like you're asking me you're asking me about sort of my experience I think what I came away with is like you're only as good as the team around you in Korea and being in the ambassador in the US in being the US ambassador in the Republic is unique because the only place you have you know unified four-star sub unified commander sorry they're with you and two three stars and how that team works together you know most ambassadors show up he or she is by far the senior person you show up in Korea and you have an embassy two to three hundred people really committed interagency a lot of diplomats but then you go to USFK and you have essentially 30,000 people there and a four-star and two three stars and oh by the way all the military assets and a training command that runs through there so I think just a lead-in point is that you've got to work together as a team and you're only as good as the colleagues you had and we had just I just want to point out the jaws he was an excellent colleague why it was why he was there and you know that's that's point one most you know interesting moment was obviously the knife attack I mean it was a you know crazy interest you know you're I'm just you know somebody told me it's like that's going to be on your tombstone when you when you die and I said yeah I guess that's probably true and you know that that's where you just see where you saw in a matter of three days a range of different emotions aspects of of South Korea and you know almost all of it was positive you know with the exception of the one to two minutes when you're being physically attacked the response was amazing by the South Korean people and that's what I always say that they'll the last point I'll say on this is you know the true test of a principle the true test of an alliance the true test of a friendship is not when things are good it's when things are bad and how you respond in that adversity and the response was just amazing I still you know I think about it you know once you know every couple of days I think about it and I still kind of get half choked up you know just remembering like some of the great things and I'll just you know you think about like thousands of people outside your hospital room you know I mean it's it was amazing and then you know like you're you're you're out of the hospital and the South Korean government shut down all the traffic and soul to get back to the residents and you're like that that's just amazing and the you know people for who you haven't heard from in years you know showing up in your hospital room or emailing you I just in a way I just will stop here it's it just you saw it there are moments where you see the very best in people brought out and that was one of those moments and it's great I get to live with that memory for the rest of my life what what I wish I would have done more of on the on the other side of the ledger I guess more time you know you I two and a half years it was great but you know it's endless in South Korea and it was just a fantastic fantastic experience you know I guess you'd sort of say do you you know I had I had a little more time I would have you know like to have done a little bit more on what I called sort of the new frontiers issues like everybody comes to South Korea they want to talk about the north south issues or secondarily they want to talk about the economic issues and there's a whole emerging set of issues in the US ROK relationship cyber space energy environment public health you know AI all of that that's an incredibly important basket of bilateral issues that will define this relationship going forward it also gets to the younger generation draws in different segments of society so I've had I had more time I would have put more focus on that and that and agreeing to swim across the Han River and sort of September are my two biggest regrets anyway so I'll stop the gentleman here all the way to the left great answer thank you Joel excuse me Joel star from usip mark good to see you I was working for a senator in Hoffman he was over on the senate form relations committee and you're in the reserves as well as I'm as a lieutenant colonel in the us army I wanted to ask you about conventional forces you just talked about the through three star commands the joint commands the UN command us army how is that reflected in the move from Yongsan to Camp Humphries and how is it perceived by the North Koreans from a conventional forces standpoint great great point Josh chime in here please you know I mean I just you know my incorrect me if I'm wrong here I my sense is you know first the North Koreans have largely fallen back on asymmetrical asymmetric capabilities in in the face of what I would say not quite overwhelming but I would say significant conventional superiority between the US and ROK and our combined forces are very I think in terms of the gap it's big and it's getting bigger so I think to to your question I think that makes the North fall back on cyber undersea warfare nuclear and missile programs things that and special operations forces I think you know I want to say you know they had a big parade in Pyongyang I want to say about a year and a half ago I'm my date but first time special operations forces were featured in that parade so I think that is where you're seeing the trend move and I think it's in a way it's in now it makes it a very difficult problem because you have to maintain your conventional superiority and account for these other factors which the North Koreans in some of them are quite good and capable so how you it I think it is a test of the agility of the alliance moving forward on on the move I don't I don't see the move as something that necessarily has a big impact on the North Koreans you know I I think you know to me a symbol of the world's I think it's our biggest military base outside the United States maybe even in the United States at a cost of ten billion dollars that the South Koreans are paying 96 percent of that's a huge symbol that we're there to stay so I think that that to me are the are the big takeaways and I think just going forward the challenge will be how do you stay it's always in this alliance you've had success in the deterrence mission how do you how do you keep that success and broaden that success into these other areas how do you deal with the reality of having most of your force presence down south and keep that connectivity that I think has worked so well between usfk cfc and the ROK military and then finally how do you deal with just a dramatically changing security environment northeast asia and that's why they pay you know general brooks a tiny government salary to keep to keep watch over all that but in all seriousness it's why we generally send our very best to to south to south korea and you've seen it I think reflected in you know promotions recently of general scaperati to uh to to you calm others they're promoting people out of Korea because I think now the people realize just how important the mission is and it's not there johns please follow a man correct we have general pio there too so you know if you want to uh please chime in as well hi i'm john mark juas i'm a former deputy commander for us forces korea and you in command korea and uh ambassador one it's great to see you here and I just want to say thanks to your great service to our country it is appreciated one of the team members that I think would be critical going forward here would be the US ambassador to korea um position hasn't been filled I like your thoughts on that on what the impact of that has been over the past year based on your past knowledge and also your discussions with your south korean friends and what you think that impact may have going forward a good question um you know first let me just say you know I do think you know there is a very capable uh sarge in south korea mark napper uh you know there's a guy who I always feel bad because you know you always get the question and it makes it sounds like the embassy's empty right and it's full of very competent um uh career officials there and you know you look at you know mark napper ed sagart and the political counselor the economic counselor joy gamma moda I mean there these are top flight uh US career diplomats that have served elsewhere mark you know speaks three languages I mean just an amazing guy who will be an ambassador one day I'm sure um you know what what I would say is you know korea is kind of the sweet spot in terms of it's a incredibly important relationship but it's one that I think is hard for the two sides to manage through capitals um you know some relationships having worked in the white house you do a lot of management through capitals right uh the uk is like that you know the time zones you know the language that that that sort of and now communications you can kind of do that right um it's harder to do that um through from the us ro k relationship and I think that's why you end up with a premium on the us ambassador and the us fk commanders and their deputies so I think it is a place where the ambassador really does have an impact I think that the the mitigating factor here in this case besides a competent charge is two things one the fact there is a four star commander out there there is that full compliment that does help cover down you obviously want the job filled it always all things being equal um you know and assuming you get the right person obviously you know it's always you're always better off and I think it does it is important in terms of the day to day momentum on the other hand like I said there are some mitigating factors one is um the uh uh the the the the us fk command structure does help a bit uh and the second it's pretty interesting I think you know all of the high level attention uh that it's getting does kind of force more management from capitals but you know where it really shows up as I always say like the the top tier issues tend to get taken care of right it's that kind of one a one b one c two third tier issues that that tend to where the ambassador can kind of go in and elevate those issues I think that's where there's a really critical need um you know and finally you know I'm a little biased I would just say you know I I um you know I I'd like to think the job was consequential right when you did it but I would say I think the other thing it really it where it where you where where it shows up is a lot in the public diplomacy a lot of the people to people diplomacy and a lot of who is the public face of that relationship obviously the president's the public face day to day uh on the macro sense but in terms of who the Korean people engage who the Korean people see in the media who the Korean people um you know kind of interact with I think that is where the ambassador really shows up and let me just end on this point you know in a country with you know depending on how you count it five to eleven national newspapers an unbelievably interactive social media scene um you know and one of the world's most vibrant democracies the public diplomacy pieces really really important that it otherwise might be I think we have time for one last question here in the back um thank you very much Ambassador I'm a reporter from Hong Kong Phoenix TV of China my question to you would be you just mentioned that China's role has changed dramatically in the past years decades my question would be how has China's role changed also what does the U.S. expect China to do specifically in addressing this peninsula issue thank you well um this is you know there many more China experts here than I uh but you know what I would say is look at the time period between you know I guess if you want to use a benchmark you kind of have to pick an arbitrary place but maybe the time of the first inter-Korean summit with Kim Dae-jung right and look where China has come economically politically militarily um you know it's it's influence on the world stage it's very different country in terms of just its prominence um you know at least in modern time so I think that's really really important and is a key driver in terms of uh security economic political machinations in northeast Asia so I think that's sort of the short answer to your question um you know what does it expect uh out of the Chinese uh you know I think it's you really have to ask the administration on that you know I'll just say from you know when when I when when we were in office with the Obama administration what we were trying to do is obviously um in you know put up the denuclearization uh issue is the most pressing concern with with Chinese leadership and the second thing in terms is just was uh was that look if the North Koreans which they didn't want to do after the leap day deal fell apart if they didn't want to negotiate we were left with a pretty binary choice in terms of sanctions and it was working with the Chinese to craft and implement uh robust sanctions because the Chinese we knew could move the needle on the sanctions unlike any other country so that's what we were after in the Obama administration and and to its credit the Chinese moved uh and moved dramatically during President Obama's time in office and his conversations with Xi Jinping they moved off of long-standing red lines and you ended up with you know two I would say pretty robust security council resolutions in 15 and 16 um you know I think the question is going forward what is enough how fast uh how rigorous the the sanctions will be implemented that's all a conversation between I think the China between Beijing and Washington that is critically important both in the run-up and the aftermath of these summits well thank you very much for your comments here today um we have one more panel we're going to get 15 minute break and then we have a final panel at two o'clock in which we're going to talk um about you know to end on a very positive note uh the possibilities and nature of military contingencies on the Korean Peninsula so I hope you will join us for that but first please join me in thanking Ambassador Lippert for his comments today all right we'll go ahead and get started for our third and uh final panel of the day thank you all for coming back this afternoon especially those of us those of you who have been with us all day um for those of you who haven't this is the last panel in our day long conference on China and North Korea examining their relationship in the past present and future we had two terrific panels this morning one looking at the history of their relationship between China and North Korea and a second thinking about what China's view of the ultimate end state on the Korea Peninsula might be and for our third panel today we are going to talk about um the possibilities of a military contingency on the Korean Peninsula um what would war look like what kind of issues might have to be addressed and what role do we think China would play um these are very tough questions and hard ones to think about but fortunately we have an excellent panel with us this morning to help think through these issues um first we will hear from Abe Denmark who will talk about some of the geopolitical and geostrategic implications and considerations of a potential war on the peninsula then we will hear from General Juaas who will talk about the U.S. ROK alliance and how it might fight a war on the Korean Peninsula and finally we'll hear from Dr. Mastro who will talk about how the PLA is thinking about a potential conflict um so uh we'll hear from each of them for about 10 to 12 minutes and their prepared remarks and then we'll open it up for questions from the audience so um to start things off we will hear first from Abraham Denmark um he is the director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars um he also holds a joint appointment as a senior fellow at the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and before joining the Wilson Center Abe served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for east Asia thank you Jennifer thank you too the USIP uh for hosting this terrific conference on a very important issue um before I begin I just wanted to offer a caveat a caveat I expect you've already heard a few times and we'll probably hear a few more times um that um what I'm about to say are my own views and not representative those of the Wilson Center or of the U.S. government um so when considering a conflict on the Korean Peninsula and how the United States and China may approach it um everything flows out of one critical question um to my mind uh and that question is if the objectives of either side are limited or if they are total um and and this is a critical question uh from both sides really uh from the from the American perspective um we've seen this debate play out in recent months where um people have been writing people have been debating this possibility of what some have referred to as a bloody nose option um to refer to as limited strike options but basically an idea that the United States would uh as it has recently done with Syria or previously with Afghanistan previously before that in Libya all sorts of other places conducted limited strikes on North Korea on a very limited set of targets not with the intention of solving a problem but with rather of sending a message and trying to establish some uh degree of a red liner or punitive action um or if the United States would seek to use a conflict uh to solve the problem which is certainly one of the objectives that the Trump Administration has been suggesting that um when President Trump says that the United States would not accept in North Korea that can strike the the United States with nuclear weapons um this in that um that such a capability is not going to happen under his watch um that uh suggests fairly expansive uh objectives from an American perspective especially considering the military realities that I expect my colleagues will get into on the difficulty of uh forcibly denuclearizing and reliably denuclearizing North Korea by force um through air power alone through uh strikes alone that many have have suggested what I believe is that um such a uh such a capability would not be possible without um a fairly significant military commitment on the part of the United States um and from China's perspective I think that question is also critical in thinking about how they would address this um in in previous years um it has been suggested um looking at various media reports coming out of China that China's uh approach to a conflict on the Korean Peninsula would be rather limited focusing on establishing a buffer zone along the border trying to contain refugees but basically trying to limit as much the crisis as much as possible um trying to fulfill what Xi Jinping has described as China's of objectives for the Korean Peninsula that being uh no war no chaos and no nuclear weapons usually in that order um and so that has been the US understanding for quite a long time and um in some sectors continues to believe to be how many Americans see China's objectives um but I think that view is starting to change and I think in part because of some of the tremendous work done by people uh by some people in this room that China's objectives on the Korean Peninsula might be much broader and more ambitious um than um than than what was uh believed to be earlier that uh China may see other interests at play beyond what exactly happens on the Korean Peninsula um and and we'll get into the specifics of what that may look like in a military scenario but um I wanted to describe sort of once we get beyond that first question of um whether this is limited or broad objectives for two sides um what would be the the key interests the key issues that both sides would be looking at um when a conflict were to occur uh again in my in in my estimation um from an American perspective once a conflict begins um my expectation is that the objective will be to rapidly degrade North Korea's ability to attack the United States and its allies especially with weapons of mass destruction um at the same time and perhaps a bit counterintuitively one of the objectives especially if America's broader strategic objective is limited and not seeking to replace the regime and reunify the peninsula um the United States will also be attempting I expect to manage escalation and maintain uh inter inter conflict deterrence so that we're able to send the message to the North Koreans that yes we're in a conflict yes we're trying to degrade your capabilities but you don't need to use your nuclear weapons you don't need to strike the United States or our allies because we're not going to try to replace your regime and try to try to maintain that uh intra conflict deterrent maintain that escalation control I think would be a key and challenging objective for the United States especially given some of the countervailing interests that we would have um to deny North Korea the ability to strike the United States uh and our allies and you can see how that those two objectives would be a bit in conflict with one another um and the the other objective that I would want to to mention from an American perspective would be to avoid war with China as the the history of this conflict is incredibly difficult from that perspective I expect that a high priority for the United States would be to try to avoid history from repeating itself and that goes to the final point that I'm going to mention about opportunities for cooperation between the two sides but first I wanted to speak what my expectation of what China's objectives would be in a conflict and I expect them to be actually quite numerous and of course it would depend on the specifics of the scenario the specifics of their ambition and the specifics of their assessment of American objectives but we I think we understand sort of um some of the more um some of the more operational concerns that the Chinese would have uh in terms of managing refugee flows uh into northeast China uh managing any uh spread of radiation or other weapons of mass destruction that may emanate from the Korean Peninsula as the result of a conflict or a test or a leakage or whatever it may be um mitigating their effects on Chinese civilian populations um also seeking to secure nuclear weapons secure weapons of mass destruction especially considering that many public assessments suggest that a lot of North Korean WMDs are close to the Chinese border um that the Chinese may see it as necessary for them to try to secure those things um there's a key question here um that I'll get back to in a bit about how the Chinese expect the United States and South Koreans to handle secure nuclear weapons and there's a very interesting question on that um but finally um I think the two pieces that I think are most important in terms of China's objectives on a conflict one would be re-establishing stability and that speaks to a key question of Chinese uh calculations what scenario what scenario do they see as most conducive to re-establishing stability in northeast Asia is it continuing uh uh divided Korean Peninsula as they've calculated for the past several decades that they see a divided Korean Peninsula as as a conducive to stability and conducive to Chinese interests or will they change their calculation that a unified Korean Peninsula under the control of South Korea would actually be more conducive to stability um that would require a major change in Chinese interests and Chinese calculations but I think it's something that once um once Pandora's box is open with the conflict it's a question that I think might be open to reinterpretation and it would be influenced the answer to that I think in China's minds would be influenced but I think is the most important question for for Chinese uh strategists when looking at a conflict on the Korean Peninsula what outcome would best uh advantage China in terms of geopolitical interest uh influence in the Korean Peninsula that um when I think this is present this is an issue that was present during previous administrations but I think has increased during the Trump administration uh during the more explicit embrace uh geopolitical competition between the United States and China that many uh Chinese strategists are increasingly seeing the Korean Peninsula through the lens of broader geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing and one of the I think one of the key questions um about Beijing's views on these issues is how they see a conflict playing in terms of that broader competition and how they would seek to position themselves and forces and forces supportive of China's interests um in the in the uncertainties of a conflict and how they try to support those interests uh in the um in the negotiation in the conflict as it gets closer to resolution um so opportunities for cooperation this is sort of the last point that you mentioned this is the last area that I wanted to focus on um I think there's a lot of opportunities for cooperation between the United States and China um and I'm sure my colleagues would have other ideas but um to me there's there's two mechanisms that I would encourage being established um in between the United States and Chinese military apparatuses between our top military leaders between the secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the of the central military commission um establishing a regular communication between those two but I'd say the most important communication to establish between the United States military and the PLA would be between the commander of US forces Korea and the commander of the northeast theater um those are the two operational leaders that would be in in charge of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula and it's those two leaders not the people back in Washington Beijing but those two people on the ground who know what's going on who have operational control of those forces that I think need to be most in close connection with each other at minimum to deconflict to make sure that operations are not accidentally influence impacting on the other but also um to um go beyond that to look at broader potential operational coordination and cooperation if the if the broader geopolitical environment supports it um so I'll finish up on one question that I alluded to earlier which is Chinese conceptions of American interests and South Korean interests um it comes as a surprise to many Americans that I that I speak to that um many of the Chinese scholars that I've had an opportunity to talk with are actually very skeptical that if in the event of a conflict if the United States or South Korea were to come into possession of North Korea nuclear weapons many Chinese scholars that I've spoken to are skeptical that we would actually remove those nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula and some Chinese scholars uh fear that that South Korea would actually take those weapons and use them to nuclearize themselves and establish a Korean either unified or South Korean nuclear capability which I think is a very problematic assumption and I think it comes as a surprise to most Americans most Americans assume that we would handle this responsibly in accordance with international law in accordance with our policy of seeking to denuclearize North Korea but being able to talk about how we would handle North Korean nuclear weapons in the event of a collapse or in the event of a conflict both in terms of military deconfliction but also in terms of removing them from the Korean Peninsula and handling them in accordance with international law I think would be an essential aspect of US China cooperation that could I think potentially happen before a conflict actually turns out and considering the tremendous technical and logistical challenges of that mission I think it's an issue that must be discussed before a conflict or a collapse happens if we wait until we need it then it'll be too late and then things will be left to chance and chaos which as we've learned in recent years has not always been favorable uh to our interests or as I expect to China's interests um so I'll I'll stop there and turn things over to my colleagues wonderful thank you very much Abe um our next speaker is Lieutenant General Jean-Marc Jouas who's now retired from the United States Air Force but recently served as the Deputy Commander for US Forces Korea and the United Nations Command Korea as well as Commander of the Air Component Command Republic of Korea US Combined Forces Command and the Commander of the Seventh Air Force and again he's going to talk to us a little bit about the US ROK Alliance and how it is thinking about a possible war on the peninsula thanks thanks Jennifer and thank you all for being here with us today and my thanks also to USIP and George Tom and Oriana for inviting me to uh be part of this panel um I'm glad to see everyone here today because I'm I'm sure that we all share a great concern with potential war on the Korean Peninsula and during my time as Deputy Commander of US Forces Korea and United Nations Command Korea we believe that if war came to Korea it would have started as a deliberate act of aggression by the north or been the result of a smaller provocative incident that spiraled into a much larger configuration uh the two major command and control exercises that are held each year key resolve and ultra-freedom guardian were always based on the premise that the alliance would initially be on the defensive now I don't know the scenario for the key resolve exercise that is currently on the way and it may still follow that same script the first half consisting of the prelude to war and initial hostilities and the second half where our forces would take the offensive what I do know is that of the six major exercises in which I participated between 2012 and 2014 none included intervention by China it simply wasn't addressed now that our mission extended into the second half of each exercise following a halftime reset if you will that moved the timeline of the exercise several weeks or more into the future but even in these scenarios in which the alliance would be on the offensive China's potential role in the conflict was never addressed it was clear that the Korean and US perspectives differed on this issue in many of my discussions with my counterparts and I think it's complexity may have been one reason for excluding this line of play in the exercise it's certainly my hope that that is no longer the case today there is a very real possibility that if North Korea develops a credible ability to made a nuclear warhead to an ICBM and launch it against the United States a scenario not previously envisioned or exercised may be facing the alliance a preventive attack by the US initiating hostilities on a peninsula this real world scenario in which the US abrogates the armistice agreement could also include the use of nuclear weapons a level of conflict that in my experience was not part of any major exercise and one that is sure to draw in China now the contours of such action could follow any number of paths some believe that a strong message by the US in a manner of a powerful conventional strike on North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities would not elicit a comparable response and deter the regime from continuing its program I am not among those who believe that having put together the operational plan for an air campaign against North Korea I am certain that we cannot completely eliminate their nuclear capability though we can cause a great damage I'm equally certain that North Korea would retaliate with artillery fire on Seoul conventional and chemical missile attacks on US and Korean bases our logistics hubs our command and control centers and other facilities initiate submarine warfare initiate special forces infiltrations and potentially launch missile attacks on Japan and the United States or its territories now how quickly this war would become nuclear is unknown but Kim Jong-un's resort to his ultimate weapon should not be discounted either to strike punishing first blows or stave off a regime collapse now while North Korea and China may no longer be as close as teeth and lips I'm equally certain that China will come to the North's support rapidly if the United States initiates hostilities I can't predict the extent of China's actions but I do know that PLA forces are far closer to the peninsula than US forces in Japan or in Alaska or in the continental United States and while North Korea may receive quick support from China I also question whether an author participating states of United Nations Command Korea will support the United States if it is viewed as the aggressor this war would have devastating consequences for South Korea and be unlike any conflict United States has seen since the last Korean war the 28,500 US armed forces personnel in South Korea are vastly outnumbered by North Korean forces under the US leadership of the combined forces command it is the Korean forces the South Korean forces that will conduct the overwhelming majority of the fighting and unlike our recent conflicts the United States will not be able to build an overwhelming force prior to the start of hostilities reinforcements will take days to months to arrive in theater as will supplies and equipment and when they do arrive they may well find their basis subject to attack by conventional or chemical weapons which will further delay their entry into the war North Korean artillery rockets and missiles that threaten the capital will take days to eliminate even under ideal conditions during that time an enormous casualty and evacuee crisis will develop and include over a hundred thousand non-combatant Americans many of whom will turn to US forces to try to get them off the peninsula the defense of South Korea and the evacuation of US citizens will be significantly complicated by the expected North Korean use of chemical munitions and the ambassador mentioned the asymmetric use of force that the North Koreans have developed and they their capabilities will also pose a severe challenge including cyber attacks against the US and Korean command and control nodes North Korean special forces which are among the largest special forces in the world will create a second front in the rear the North Korean submarine force also among the largest submarine forces in the world although it's a brownwater submarine force although technically inferior is is capable of sinking allied vessels sowing mines and inserting special forces units the United States intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that are critical to finding targets will be limited by hardened and concealed North Korean underground facilities the lack of under present overhead imagery satellites the terrain of North Korea and mobile North Korean weapons systems that can rapidly relocate and these include the four ICBMs that can reach the United States the KN 08 the KN 14 the KN 20 and the KN 22 a non permissive air environment will drastically curtail the use of unmanned aerial vehicles that that are ubiquitous in other theaters these ISR limitations coupled with the North's abilities to move hide or deeply shelter their assets will significantly degrade our ability to find fix and finish many high priority targets at the onset of the conflict I do believe that in the end we would be victorious but it would be a very very difficult fight it is far more likely that a US attack on North Korea no matter how limited would result in a dissolution of the 1953 armistice and a resumption of war between North Korea and the US rock alliance an attack by the US on North Korea strategic nuclear capabilities which they deem essential to the regime's survival would most likely be viewed as an existential threat and generate a corresponding response in my opinion under these circumstances it's inconceivable that China would not intervene and so I'll turn the turn time back over to you Oriana well I will briefly introduce Oriana although I know you've heard from her already today we're very happy to have Oriana Schuyler master with us I'm not only as a co or leading organizer of this conference but also a panelist today on our last panel she is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmond a Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and also as I mentioned primary organizer of today's conference she's also the Jean Kirkpatrick Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an officer in the United States Air Force Reserve Oriana thank you and thank you all for being here I'm happy to serve as the last panelist and General Juas gave me a nice segue to talk about Chinese planning for Korea contingencies before I do so I just want to specify like Abe did that my views are my own and don't represent those of the US government US Department of Defense with the United States Air Force when I first started looking at this issue I had seen a pattern that General Juas very clearly articulated for you today which was at least in the defense community in the military community in the United States in my experience there hadn't been serious consideration or thinking on what the Chinese role would be in a contingency now one of the reasons for this I think is that when it comes to China as a China specialist I know that things change very rapidly for example I wrote an article that was published in the January February issue of foreign affairs in which I made a series of arguments which I'll lay out today and between January and today many things have occurred and happened on the Korean issue we had the Olympics the inter-Korean summit we had Kim visit Beijing we had the national security advisor be swapped out now we have John Bolton in that role and so only in the course of two months I was asked by foreign affairs to write a post script which was posted last weekend how my views have changed and how they've stayed the same when you study the Chinese military more broadly because of how quickly they've been making progress it's the same thing you have to constantly be reassessed in your views and so when I spent time talking to individuals who were focused on the military aspects but not China experts it seemed to me that their view of China was correct if it were 25 years ago but China had come a long way since the 1990s where they couldn't fly or land unless they could see the ground and their Navy didn't have any air defense systems on it so they're basically a glorified Coast Guard that had to hug their shores and so I was inspired to look more deeply into given especially the increase in capabilities of the Chinese military had their thinking about Korea changed and the bottom line argument I made in that foreign affairs article that General Jua also hinted to was that our de facto planning assumption needs to be that if there is a major conflict on the peninsula the Chinese military is going to intervene extensively militarily and this is a bit of a nuance but not in support of North Korea but in support of their own interests in the months that I spent in Beijing talking to military officers I was told that they don't expect an invitation from Kim and that they plan on fighting the North Koreans to intervene so this is not an intervention in support of their allies you heard this morning Dr. Wang pointed out very clearly there is no alliance China is looking out for its own interests and in some scenarios that would be to intervene some scenarios that would be to prop up a pro-China government afterwards and other scenarios would be to get rid of that regime and support South Korea but the bottom line is that China is looking out for its own interests and if it did intervene militarily what would that look like so I'm going to talk a bit about the forces that they have available the exercises that they have done and some of the writings that they put forth on why they would intervene to this degree so if China intervened the newly formed northern theater command would be in charge of this contingency in charge of the large ground forces that would be required for any type of operation from something more limited to more extensive combat operations force posture and exercises suggests that China is planning on infiltrating North Korea by air by sea and by land for example in September of 2017 a few days after the North Korean fifth nuclear test land and air force personnel Chinese personnel conducted exercises while China strategic rocket force practiced shooting down incoming missiles over the waters close to North Korea and this scenario one of the thing that comes up a lot is the discussion of the border and one of the things that have changed in the past couple of years is that the Chinese military no longer is really in charge of that refugee border mission the people's armed police which I'll talk a little bit more about later they would be primarily in charge of securing the border in this contingency and what this does is it frees up the Chinese military to engage in more extensive combat operations within the northern theater command there are three group armies the 78th 79th and 80th and each of these group armies has about 30,000 to 50,000 troops and very interestingly a little less than two years ago they did a reform of these group armies in which they put a army aviation brigade into each and the special operations forces brigade into each and so what this tells us is you know these forces could be used for a ground invasion of North Korea but also China seems to be preparing to drop in special special ops forces and secure some critical sites within North Korea such as those nuclear sites this is something that the brigade seemed to be training for the aviation brigades also if you take a look at the equipment that they have available to them they have a full mix of both transport and attack helicopters they would be needed for any sort of close air support or lift capabilities into North Korea if this conflict actually extended and was prolonged the the northern theater command could also pull the same types of assets from the central theater command if they needed those types of extra forces another thing that was interesting in the reorganization the Chinese military used to be organized according to military regions the country was broken up into different military regions and each military region was in charge not only of sort of the internal defense border defense insert when it was relevant of the country but then they also had these kind of external missions one of the reasons that Xi Jinping got rid of that system was it was too internally focused it made it difficult for China to move forward with joint operations and to project power so when there was a reestablishment or an establishment of these theater commands which uh China now has one of the interesting things about the northern theater command that's in charge of Korea contingencies is it's the only one that has territory that's non-contiguous specifically in addition to putting together two military regions that were next to each other they decided to take a piece of territory the Shandong Peninsula which has not touched those other territories but add it to the northern theater command why would you do this primarily because by adding that you give the northern theater command also access to the sea and this coupled with some exercises that China has done in the Bohai and Yellow Sea off the coast of North Korea and Japan suggests that China is also thinking of intervening amphibiously by sea now if they if they did intervene a few points and whether this is good or bad for the United States the first thing is on the refugee issue China is and we heard this morning very concerned about a flow of refugees and I don't mean to understate their concern about this however they're given their increased capabilities there is a degree of confidence I've seen in interviews and in writings that they could handle this China plans to seal the border and conduct border control operations and they have the people's armed police to do so they also have security forces along the border and 24-hour surveillance there now one of the things that is often discussed is is it possible to cooperate with China when it comes to dealing for example with North Korean nuclear weapons as they pointed out China's right now has a number of interests one of which is they're primarily concerned about nuclear security there's a view in China that China has to be in control of North Korean nuclear facilities for a number of reasons one he already laid out ironically to ensure the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula if the United States is in control of these weapons there are a lot of people in China that are convinced that the United States would hand those off to the South Koreans and allow a reunified South Korea to be nuclear now again this seems counterintuitive for Americans when I first heard this argument I used to ask well if the United States wanted South Korea to have nuclear weapons we could just give them some we could you know support their development it's primarily because the United States does not support the development that South Korea doesn't have nuclear weapons so where did this argument come from and what I heard was that the United States cares about international norms and international pressure so allowing South Korea to have nuclear weapons under those circumstances would be unacceptable but a contingency provides this loophole in which the United States could say yes we want denuclearization dismantlement but according to some long timeline that then over time South Korea becomes a de facto nuclear state China is also concerned about North Korea using nuclear weapons and so they think if they're in control of the facilities and I agree with this Chinese control of North Korean nuclear weapons are better than North Korean control of those weapons and lastly they think if Chinese troops are at these facilities the United States is less likely to conduct standoff strikes that could lead to contamination because they wouldn't want to risk war with China and so nuclear security is a primary issue for China and if you just look at the force posture I laid out before and geography based on information from the nuclear threat initiative if China moved 50 kilometers across the border into North Korea the PLA would control territory containing approximately 44 percent of North Korea's priority nuclear sites and 22 percent of their priority missile sites if Chinese forces move 100 kilometers in they would control basically all of the priority nuclear missile of the nuclear sites and two-thirds of the missile sites now China is going if China decides to intervene as I am arguing they are going to get there long before the United States does you heard a few words of that from general jews about why that is the case but let me just point out a few things the first one being as was already mentioned you know the United States has 30 000 forces within South Korea now it's true that the South Korean counterparts or allies would play a major role in those ground operations but they have limitations in terms of what they can do with the nuclear sites because South Korea is a non-nuclear state and according to NPT rules they have limitations on what they can handle now my understanding is in the State Department right now they're trying to push forward some ideas that would allow the South Korean troops to identify identify those facilities and hand them over to the United States but it's primarily the US troops that would have to do this and according to some Rand studies based on how permissive the environment are we're talking about 188 000 to a quarter million US troops that would be dedicated just to securing and dealing with these nuclear facilities now the United States doesn't have this kind of manpower readily available China does as I mentioned before China already has 150 000 PLA ready to go along the border also if even though the Chinese are planning on having to fight the North Koreans to intervene what they would say is they have a great advantage because the North Koreans are very much focused on fighting South Korea and the United States so the best troops and the majority of their conventional assets are oriented south and are not along the border to counter China so China has an advantage there the third advantage that they have and we can talk a bit more about intelligence maybe in the Q&A but at least when it comes to early warning the Chinese do have 24 hour surveillance of that border and they also have ties people to people ties across that border so in certain contingencies for example if a war was going to occur because of a collapsed type of scenario China is confident that they would get some sort of indicator that something is happening before the United States would which will allow them to be better prepared so in this scenario if China is ready to move more quickly and can move more quickly by air by sea and by ground this discussion of what the United States is going to do with this these nuclear facilities is kind of a moot point because what I would argue is that Chinese are already going to be there and is this good or bad if the United States depends on a few things my last minute I'll just talk a bit about capabilities China has that I did a broader analysis on China's ability to safely secure these facilities do the accounting waste disposal render safe weapons dismantle them destroy them because leaving aside intentions if China can't actually do the mission this would be very problematic for the United States my bottom line assessment is that in many of these areas China is very capable there's two areas where China is the weakest one is the dismantlement of nuclear weapons now I talk to Chinese scientists who tell me they're very capable of doing this and they say so because North Korean weapons are configured ironically very similar to Chinese nuclear weapons I'm told and because North Korean nuclear weapons are very simple in their design now I'm not a nuclear scientist so I did what any good researcher would do I went and talked to some nuclear scientists and I asked them I said guess what you know good news the Chinese say they can do this for these two reasons I was told by those individuals there's no way China can do this for two reasons the first is close in configuration is not good enough when it comes to dealing with nuclear weapons and the second thing is the simpler the weapon the less the safeguards are on those weapons it actually makes them more dangerous to render safe and in the history of you know conflict we've never had a situation not even the United States in which a country has dismantled another country's nuclear weapons without the cooperation of that state so this is a very complex mission the second thing that China is weaker on is a nonproliferation it's my understanding that Chinese definition of nonproliferation is very limited compared to the US definition specifically they're focused on preventing dangerous materials from entering into China that's not good enough for the United States that wants to make sure they don't leave North Korea the good news is in these two areas the Chinese seem to be very open international cooperation for example once these sites are secured inviting in IAEA to help them with that dismantlement or when it comes to nonproliferation maybe cooperating with the United States who could be in charge of sealing the ports for example as they secure those facilities so my bottom line assessment is I think that the I wouldn't make this argument for many other contingencies if if you have read anything else that I have read I would say that Chinese military involvement anywhere else in the world is not to the benefit of the United States but this one contingency I think it would be beneficial to have the Chinese military there because they can get there quicker and that would prevent nuclear use on the Korean Peninsula and given the level of capabilities they have and the areas where they're willing to cooperate I think at least operationally it would be very beneficial for the United States now as was said on previous panels China doesn't cooperate she's anything Dr. Wong said specifically you also have to think about don't just ask China to do something but what you're going to give them in return this type of help does not come without costs it comes with strategic trade-offs names as Yoon Sun pointed out the future of the peninsula as China sees it as one without US forces and without a US alliance and so if China has control over large parts of North Korean territory and North Korean nuclear weapons you better believe they're going to leverage that type of control for the sake of achieving some of those angles that might not be to the benefit of the United States so with that I will conclude well thank you very much to all three of you for three wonderful presentations and you really uncovered a lot of really fascinating issues from a number of different angles so we've got a lot to talk about over the next half hour so in our Q&A session I will start first I want to go back to some comments that Abe had made where I think you said one of if there is a war in the peninsula one of our main goals will be trying to find ways to avoid war with China in that contingency and I could see that but obviously happen if the Chinese don't get involved which doesn't sound likely or that they fight with us which also seems unlikely but then perhaps this third scenario that Oriana has described would be most likely where they're not necessarily aligned with the North and therefore fighting against us but they're really in defense of their own interests and sort of operating it in perhaps a third actor in the conflict and so I'm wondering if that's accurate or if you see another way that we would be involved in a conflict but not in war with China and related to that this conversation about ways that the United States can work with China to identify areas for cooperation and talk through some of these issues in advance and you know you suggested having the commander of USFK and the commander of the Northern Theater Command together to work through some of these issues it sounds like that's not happening and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why that might be and what it might take for those conversations to actually take place so my expectation going into pretty much any conceivable scenario of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula is that neither Beijing nor Washington will enter into this conflict with the intention of going to war with the other. I expect that their military objectives would be focused on primarily on Korean Peninsula issues. The challenge for me therefore is avoiding unintentional conflict between the two and I see that most happening in scenarios in which the United States is trying to go after North Korean targets that have already been overrun or controlled by Chinese military forces and you know one version of that if you think about a North Korean WMD facility that American military planners believe is a threat to the United States and to our allies and therefore high on the list of targets in the early hours and days of a conflict but unbeknownst to the United States to American planners is also high on the list for Chinese planners and forces and you see and which leads to the potential for the United States bombing a target that's being occupied by the PLA and not as we believe by the KPA and you can see how that could lead to an out of control escalation between the two sides. The only other way I see a conflict happening between the United States and China is if China comes at the conflict in very cold real politic calculations. In the belief as Oriana mentioned as I mentioned that this conflict is while it's nominally about Korea what it's really about is competition between the two sides and they need to secure an advantageous position potentially using this conflict as a way to press their geopolitical advantage and press their geographical advantage further into Northeast Asia in a way that disadvantages the United States and going into this conflict from a Chinese perspective going to this conflict potentially on purpose if not not to go to a general war with the United States but rather to send a message to the United States this isn't your area you need to back off we will take it from here basically. In terms of challenges for cooperation I think the primary hurdle has been Chinese reluctance and this has been a story that we've been dealing with for quite a long time that there's a they don't have the same historical background as the United States they don't have the same belief in military to military communications as a tool of de-escalation they don't share the same belief that transparency breeds stability they come at things from a completely different perspective that transparency is the tool of the strong against the weak that countries need to maintain ambiguity in order to maximize their strategic advantages and so while we have had success in military and military communications over over the years I've participated in several of those they're usually fairly technical and take a tremendous amount of work and especially time to actually get there so I expect that if situation if the situation comes down to it if things get bad on the Korean Peninsula I expect to see a flurry of activity from China reaching out to the United States and we need to talk we need to figure this out the things that we've been wanting to do for years I expect that they'd pick up the phone and start and start talking about but ultimately the key to military and military communications in my experience is not the agreement we have a lot of agreements with China in the military to military sphere we have for quite a long time the cutting to the agreement of this is how we're going to talk to each other that's actually the easy part the hard part is when something happens both sides need to be able to pick up the phone and actually be able to communicate with each other authoritatively there's stories from several senior military commanders US military commanders when there's an incident with the Chinese we pick up the phone and it rings for 45 minutes because nobody answers and until we actually get to the point where the two military leaders I think we're getting closer to this where two military leaders on the two sides are able to talk to each other in the middle of a crisis and speak to each other in a constructive and helpful and detailed way we're always going to have that challenge and I expect that's going to be a major problem for this contingency especially but even outside of the Korea context looking at issues related to the South China Sea related to Taiwan a wide variety of issues I think this is going to be a continual challenge in our military relationship thank you very much um general gs two short questions for you one is um you talked about the US ROK exercises and how they don't really take the role of China into consideration I'm wondering um what those exercises assume about the role of Japan and perhaps Russia um or what you're thinking might be in the role that those countries might play in a potential conflict um and also just a broader question about the US ROK alliance it's obviously been in existence for decades and hasn't by any means been static during that time but I'm wondering um if you could make some recommendations for changes or revisions or growth that might be necessary in that alliance to prepare it for the future what you might recommend well thanks Jennifer uh with regard to Russia and Japan one of my criticisms of our exercise program was that they were too focused on Korea and that is um and I'm sure my panel members here would agree that any conflict on the Korean Peninsula is going to extend beyond the Korean Peninsula uh North Korea has the ability and I don't doubt the desire to attack US bases in Japan from which we would be launching sorties or or or supporting the effort on on the peninsula um and yet PAKOM was only marginally involved and PAKOM for those that don't have specific command and it's uh responsible for the entire Pacific theater from the Arctic to the Antarctic and from the West Coast California to the Indian Ocean uh US forces Korea is a subunified command to Pacific command um but PAKOM was only superficially engaged with any of our major exercises there when in fact this would not be a localized war it would be a regional conflict and so you know what Russia would do what Japan how that would play into it and what in in a larger view uh the rest of Pacific would be doing including our allies was just not part of the exercise so uh that was one of my criticisms and and I think they may around us probably more at speed on this than than me because I left three years ago hopefully they've made some steps in that direction to make it a more realistic exercise that involves all the levels of command control and all the larger organizations that would be involved like US Army Pacific and Pacific Air Forces and for one very important was its fifth Air Force which is in Japan it would be doing much to support the the fight on the Korean Peninsula uh in terms of what our alliance can do you're right the the uh the alliance was formed in 1953 and it's gone through many changes over that time uh our presence on the peninsula has has gotten smaller over the years particularly in the Carter years when it was almost eliminated um and I think one of uh one of the transitions that we we see in play right now is op-con transition which after more than 60 years the United States still remains in command of a combined forces command the US forces Korea command of the force star is also in charge of all us and uh Korean forces that has the command of combined forces command um this transition was supposed to have taken place initially I think in 2012 and then again I think in 2015 I remember right uh it's now been um conditionally based and so it will happen at some time in the future but uh I would I would say that uh a gradual assumption of greater responsibility by the rock forces I think is is one of those uh uh items that needs to to take place in in our alliance that and um I I think more jointness uh as the United States has has become more joint in in a way it approaches conflict I would hope to see the same develop and you see it in the Korean forces where they are becoming more joint but uh in some ways they're still very much as we were before the Goldwater Nichols Act and and that is you know kind of stovepipe within you know navy lanes and air force and army and marine lanes so I would say enhanced jointness and uh accepting more responsibility for uh the big fight on the part of Korean forces thank you um Oriana two last questions for you one is I want to make sure we don't miss part of the title of this panel which is war and it's aftermath um so I wonder if we could talk a little bit more about how China is thinking about um what happens after the fighting stops you talked a little bit about the People's Armed Police taking control of the refugee issue in China so I had a couple questions one on how China might be thinking about the humanitarian issues involved in terms of making people sure people are fed and addressing uh communicable diseases but also the inevitable economic development that's going to be required um and related to that your your um uh notion that you know what would be included in a 50 kilometer zone of control or 100 kilometer zone of control um I think I've heard some China experts say that China would not be interested in that because then they would therefore own all of the humanitarian related issues uh that would need to be addressed within that zone of control and I wonder if that's something you have seen much discussion about um and finally uh your point at the very end about um the fact that China can play a very positive uh role in in a conflict but it would require some strategic trade-offs to get their help um I'm curious so much of what you described seemed to be very much in line with China's own interests um and again part of the driving reason for them getting involved in doing these things in the first place so what what do you think was sort of the extra that they would do in exchange for strategic trade-off that wouldn't be included in what they would do just simply because it's in their own interest to do so so I'll start with um the strategic trade-off question and this goes to the aftermath of what are the possible scenarios the bottom line is that China is not interested in paying any costs you know whether it's through diplomacy which you know is a different panel or through conflict that then leads to an outcome in which the United States is more powerful and more influential in the peninsula from the Chinese perspective that doesn't really make any sense that's why I think for a great degree they're supporting the status quo because the United States hasn't really presented a vision uh at all let alone a credible vision of one in which China would be better off in the future than they are today um and so what China is really looking for is that reduction of US influence um and now with the summits uh if you look at what Xi Jinping has said about uh how he thinks we can get the nuclearization it's very clearly based on reciprocity in which the United States military also reduces its presence operations and things like that so that's a different strategic route but in terms of conflict I think the timeline is important when it comes also to thinking about the costs of reunification the humanitarian issue my sense is that China is hoping that its occupation of North Korea is actually very short lived right that it right after you know the conflict is going to come to some sort of close China can use this occupation to negotiate reunification terms that are favorable to Beijing now I have this um uh back and forth with Michael Green my colleague at Georgetown about this issue I don't see any indications in Chinese writings or I'm talking to them that they're in any way threatened by democratic South Korea the fact that South Korea is a democracy I don't think is really problematic I've seen many statements even by Xi Jinping himself in which he supports a reunified Korean Peninsula under South Korean control but that reunified peninsula is not one of which the United States is there so very shortly in these types of negotiations China would want to ensure okay we're leaving and the United States is leaving now if that doesn't look possible if the United States says no we're not going to do that China might put in prop up another regime in North Korea not allow for that reunification to happen so that's a possibility um and if the unification does happen if the United States does agree to some sort of reductionist relationship with South Korea or at least the elimination of troops on the Korean Peninsula um if that reunification happens I think the Chinese believe they're basically they don't as far as I can tell they're not really thinking about the humanitarian issue or the economic costs because those are things that come in the next stage that the international community in South Korea primarily will be dealing with um that they don't really have to be the ones to deal with it because they won't be present there anymore and when it comes to refugee camps and things like that they too can open those situations up to the international community so they're not primarily responsible I've heard as much discussion about the economic benefits of reunified peninsula for China in terms of you know maintaining preferential rights to certain natural resources there access to ports and roads while Chinese ports are themselves congested and the idea that if that North Korea to China is like how China was with the reform and opening up that a lot of overseas Chinese invested in China when it was so low on the economic totem pole made all this money off of that that China could be that to North Korea so I think to a large degree um they're thinking about these broader geostrategic issues about how to position themselves in a beneficial place with respect to the United States and all the kind of other real nitty gritty issues about how to do this outside of the military realm um I don't think they care quite as much about some of these issues as we as the United States would if it were in control of that territory. All right um we're going to open it up to the audience for questions um if you have a question please raise your hand um and our wonderful mic runners will bring you a microphone ask that you please identify yourself um and your affiliation and make sure that your question um is actually a question does anyone like to start? I'm the defense editor from Republic Korea defense editor to the United States um I hope that I don't see another second Korean war in my lifetime um however all despite all the efforts it happens uh things we're talked about here I think it's uh arena talks about the Chinese capability to be able to secure the uh nuclear programs or missile sites I think it's a great idea however um if you purely talks about capability itself I think I think your argument is uh quite appropriate there is common ground for U.S. and China might be able to cooperate and collaborate to deal with the North Korean threat however I want to put some of the layers here first uh add layers in first one uh it's not war between United States and uh the China if a conflict happens uh if you think about the situation there will be forces fighting between South Korea and North Korea and these two uh forces will be critical in determining the direction of the conflicts so in terms of Chinese intervention early stage and the decision will be made by uh not united by the United States all the forces goes into North Korea will be determined by bilateral decision between the United States and the South Korea presidents they are the ultimate decision makers so if you add players particular South Korean forces in acting North Korea fighting in North Korea and if you add North Korean forces and there will be a whole different calculation we're uh facing so how would you recommend United States China communicate with South Korea communicate North Korea in terms of this whole uh the conflicts particularly when you deal with the nuclear and the missile sites thank you for that that question um I always like to get a question like that when I talk about this to give me the opportunity to point out that there's no aspect of what I am saying that anyone in South Korea likes um I recognize that most part when I talk about the benefits of Chinese involvement uh individuals I've spoken to in South Korea are not open to the idea of having China involved now my personal position is uh we don't have a choice this is gonna happen so let's think strategically about how to deal with it but a lot of the South Korean view is I understand it comes from um a different interpretation of what Chinese interests are I've heard arguments for example that of concern that China would continue to occupy into or annex parts of North Korea that they have occupied to China my understanding is this comes from a lot of the historical issues that professor Xu talked about this morning but I don't see any indication of that being a part of uh Chinese interests or plans and so while you've pointed out that technically you know the United States and South Korea will decide together on you know when to intervene how to intervene the first thing I will say is I have less certainty about that now under this current administration than I have had in the past um ideally that is what is supposed to happen I'm not sure how that's what that how it's going to happen uh now we have to also consider that war would happen not only because North Korea attacks or because of a collapse scenario but a third new scenario which is the United States attacks North Korea there's a lot of uncertainty about how that would go down um but in the end I do recognize the South Korean position that uh they are not excited about the idea of having Chinese involvement my personal viewpoint is for those operational benefits it's worth the strategic trade-off but there's a lot of people who would disagree with that position I understand the concern I the only ad I would have onto what Oriana said um is I share a lot of the concerns that some in South Korea have about about China getting involved and a Chinese role for in securing some of these WMD sites um so I had two reactions to that I wanted to add onto what Oriana said first is I actually have quite a lot of confidence in the ability the U.S. and South Korea to coordinate um I think having seen our alliance operate um in person um I think the the level of coordination across all levels of government and the military I think is quite robust um and I and I feel very confident about that but I think Oriana pointed out that we should not assume any coordination between China and North Korea and that we should not conceive of them as as actually operating in any degree of coordination that in fact may be operating in opposition to one another um but I so I think that's the first that's the first point the second point I wanted to make is that um when we think about securing nuclear facilities I think there's two aspects to it and I think we need to be clear about what we're talking about there's on one hand securing the facility you know making sure nothing goes in or out just sort of locking the gates and guarding the door right to make it you know in a rough sense and that doesn't take very specialized training or capabilities you know a national guard unit could do that um the other hand what Oriana is focused on what most people focused on is actually going into those facilities taking control of the weapons of mass destruction and and making them not a danger and that is an incredibly specialized capability which I think as we've said South Korea has challenges with the United States has capabilities but it's quite limited and China I think arguably has some capability I share Oriana skepticism about Chinese capabilities of doing that effectively but in the in the for the purposes of a contingency the first hand the just closing the door locking it guarding it I actually think is quite possible and the second piece can be done over a longer longer period of time after combat operations have come to a close but in terms of China actually seizing these facilities and holding these facilities whether or not the United States or Korea want that to happen I think is sort of beside the point I think this is a key point that Oriana makes that we may not want China to control facility X but by the time we're actually able to do anything about it they'll probably there's a good chance that they'll already be there regardless of how we feel about it and then the question for our top leaders as you said general um would be do we want to risk going to war with China over who controls that facility and as you said that's a discussion between the two presidents I think there may have been a a questioner about how it would be coordinated military to military and in general I'm not quite sure I was trying to think of a past example in which two separate forces were working in tandem like that without an operational chain of command that starts at one point with you know overall objective so I I think it would be something that we would work out I think it could be done but it would be an an untraditional type of command control arrangement between the two nations thanks any other questions yes here in the middle hi Samantha pets 38 north sorry my voice is a lot off um so when we talk about aftermath you're usually talking about capabilities infrastructure people but I think something that's missing from the discussion is the economics of it and that we haven't seen a war that affects all the major economies as it would today the global economy has completely changed this would affect China this would affect us there's so many companies based in south korea if war breaks out the devastation that would occur not just to the countries but to the global economy is so extreme and so I was wondering for in your experience have you seen in collapse planning or contingency planning is there anything that is being done about that side of things I can make a quick comment about that because I feel like what you've laid out is the conventional wisdom and that is equally as likely as many other types of scenarios so as a political scientist I just want to point out there's a lot of political scientists research on this that calls into question this claim of of the how it would impact the economy when countries go to war if you look at wars recently or across history the economic impact is usually temporary I think it's usually like five years after that war breaks out and so we have this idea that those economic ties are so robust and because there's going to be these huge costs that can somehow influence the the decision-making I think it's equally as possible if you have a short a war that's limited in duration depending on on whether you know you can ensure that Kim doesn't use nuclear weapons for example that the economic cost is not going to be as great as this worst-case scenario that's laid out but even so if you have this type of economic cost I just want to point out for better or for worse that even when there's huge economic cost associated with things states still always prioritize security and so I have a paper I wrote in survival to go through this argument with us in China just so that we're adequately warned that economic ties are not sufficient to override some of these security concerns I agree with Oriana but I have a separate briefing that I've given to other people that draws on certain sources that depict what the economic impact would be I mean in one instance there's three and a half million U.S. jobs that depend on the economy of northeast Asia I'm not talking about Korea specifically but just northeast Asia in general so we'll talk about more than just Latte and Samsung and Hyundai and OG and the rest of the Korean tribals that you know would would be severely impacted if not destroyed by this but yeah and in the amount of GDP and just trade in that part of world and what it would do would actually be very very significant as as you point out but I agree with Oriana you know that that is a secondary consideration to national security and you know if we were to be attacked or if North Korea were to attack South Korea thank you my name is Ryan Nina I'm a student in the security studies program at Georgetown I'm also an active duty army officer my question is for General Joss sir you mentioned the op-con transition and I was just wondering what is that when it's complete what is that going to look like for U.S. soldiers on the ground in Korea in the event of a contingency occurring on the peninsula and what are the costs and benefits for the United States in your opinion on that well I think the obvious benefit is that we've been there since 1950 and when we at the end of the war in 1953 when Korea was devastated and and we were largely responsible for its national defense has been a lot of change Korea I think is about 14th in the world now in GDP in terms of you know purchasing parity in any case it's over a trillion dollar economy they are they've gone from a deader nation to a donor nation they are part of United Nations forces in different places around the world and it's it's you know there's a good question that's raised by many here in the United States that say shouldn't they be responsible for their own defense and I think that's what our government and their government decided at the time that op-con transition was originally supposed to transpire in 2012 well based on the seeking of the Chonan and the Northwest islands incidents and other conditions at the time it was decided to postpone that to 2015 2015 we decided actually prior to then that the conditions weren't right yet and now there's really no determinant point at which that will happen but I but I think the advantage is that Korea is a modern first world nation that it has over 600,000 uh soldier sailors airmen and marines in its forces and it's capable of being in command of its own defense and that's that's your argument what that means to uh to us soldiers on the ground there will still be a us chain of command there and so uh you know you if you deploy there will still be working you know in an American led chain of defense that works with the combined forces command at the time I think we have time for one more question Frank we'll give you the last word hi Frank I'm USIP I want to go back to the original question so uh and we're talking about um securing nuclear weapons do you think um what do you think would be the ideal uh collaborative relationship you or Ariana you talked about uh China having advantages in terms of proximity and resources but do you think the ideal situation would be a trilateral one where you take advantage of China's resources and proximity but also uh the US know how in terms of render safe and dismantlement but also Korean resource South Korean resources in terms of language abilities and also just sort of their understanding of North Korea um would that be ideal and if that's the case what sort of pushback do you think might come from China given that that again they have that initial advantage so this is good we can end on an optimistic note the first thing I'd say is because of some of those uh advantages as you mentioned US know how and expertise no country has had more experience dismantling and destroying uh WMD than the United States has and so as was previously mentioned and Abe pointed on this the Chinese are not particularly interested in talking with us about these constituencies my view was in in the fall there was an opening it seemed like they were softening up to the idea but with Kim's visit to Beijing I see that now there's too many political costs associated with talking about the demise of the regime with the United States so that opening is closed what hasn't closed though is that the United States can always engage in unilateral information transmission to the United to China and also training that isn't so specific on North Korea so we do have the Center for Excellence for Nuclear Security in Beijing that is a cooperative effort between China and the United States about civilian nuclear issues a lot of those issues transfer over into a wartime scenario things like accounting verification and waste disposal and transportation so we could use that as kind of an umbrella to you don't have to say you're talking about knowledge but I would say you know one thing would be unilateral information transmission training under civilian guys trying to put forth that white paper on nuclear security two years ago in which they developed a mechanism for how they would deal with nuclear accidents and that's something that the United States could get on board with so in the ideal scenario I think it's just as you laid out right the South Koreans have a great deal of expertise about North Korea and they have the language capabilities which is critical for identifying and interviewing personnel that works at these facilities the United States has a great deal of expertise on rendering safe and destroying these materials and then China has the advantage in terms of manpower to secure initially and do the accounting and verification of these sites. China seems to be relatively open to the South Koreans being involved there's nothing a threat to their interests really for the South Koreans to be present as well as the international community to be present at these sites but the international community does not include US military personnel and so that that is not really a doubt that doesn't really hurt the mission because it's not ideally it's not military personnel that's trying to engage in these things you need to you know have a permissive enough environment to bring in civilian scientists and other experts and a lot of equipment to actually deal with the dismantlement destruction portion of it and so if the if the red line for China is just you know military boots on the ground I think the United States if we wanted to which is a big if but I think the United States could make that work to bring all the different strengths of the United States South Korea and China into the mix to deal with these weapons. Yeah if I could add on to what Oriana said but first Frank answered asked the question I just wanted to mention to those of you who don't know Frank, Frank Amman runs our Korea work at USIP was a tremendous asset in the US government he worked for me in the Pentagon and really was a rock star across the US government all the issues related to North Korea I think was a huge loss for the government when he left so I wanted to sing your praises a bit Frank and to answer your question in terms of a Chinese role for all this I want to strike a bit more of a skeptical note than than Oriana about about China's role. I think it's from an American perspective we should not overestimate China's role in all of this and China's investment in all of this unlike the United States China is not an ally to any of these countries China has no responsibility to any of these countries China has no interest in any of these countries beyond itself and so when you ask South Koreans about a Chinese role in a potentially post-conflict unified Korean Peninsula you often get a lot of concern I hear a lot of concern a lot of skepticism about China's role and that speaks to what I think is a fairly realistic expectation of as you mentioned in the in the agenda the aftermath of what happens after a conflict Oriana described the Chinese position I wrote it down actually because I as we're leaving and you're leaving from a Chinese perspective I think the emphasis would be on you're leaving the expectation is that as I mentioned before China will seek to maximize its geopolitical advantage and therefore maximize its influence on a unified Korean Peninsula economically politically etc we've already seen China trying to influence South Korean politics with a very heavy hand when when it believes Seoul is operating counter to Beijing's conceptions of its interest and I would expect that to continue and so when thinking about trilateral cooperation between the two sides between the three sides in a conflict scenarios I think China does have a very important role to play I think we need to be realistic about how much it's going to be willing to cooperate with the US and the South Korea but I also think we need to recall that ultimately the future destiny of the Korean Peninsula should be up to the Koreans and that most South Korean most South Korean leaders both either progressive or conservative believe and I think rightly believe that their long-term autonomy their long-term sovereignty is better protected by working with the Americans rather than working with the Chinese and so when you think about when I think about what trilateral cooperation means I actually think it turns into something more of a bilateral cooperation cooperation between China on one hand and the US-RK alliance on the other hand because those reliance are not and cannot be seen as anything equivalent and I think we need to be realistic about about the role that China could play in all those things that's a good question okay well we will thank our panel in just a second but before we do I wanted to thank all of you for coming today especially those of you who've been with us all day we really appreciate it you've had some great questions and some great conversations on the side and we really appreciate your spending the day with us to talk about these issues I also want to give a special thanks to the team at the Georgetown Center for Strategic Security Studies excuse me who worked very hard to pull this together especially Jordan Annie and Grayson thank you for your work and thanks also to the Georgetown students who volunteered today with registration and mic running and a number of other tasks I also want to thank the build-in Asian Security Studies fund for funding today's conference and for the staff here at USIP who've been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure everything comes together perfectly and last but not least I want to thank Frank Aum our senior expert in North Korea who's done a lot of work to pull this together and especially Jennifer Chang here who really has been managing all the logistics for today and this would not have been possible without her so thanks to the entire team that's put this together and especially to our three panelists it's been a great conference and we really appreciate you're being a part of it thanks