 Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming. My name is Victor Chime, Senior Advisor and Korea Chair here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Professor at Georgetown University. And we're very happy to welcome you here to the Korea Global Forum 2014, which we are doing co-hosting in cooperation with the East Asia Institute. And Dr. Suk Jong Lee of the East Asia Institute will offer some welcoming remarks in a moment. This morning we have really an, I think, unprecedented and unique combination of speakers in Assistant Secretary Russell and in the Unification Minister, as well as Deputy Secretary Rich Arminage, who will be joining us later this morning. So to start us off, the first thing we'd like to do is show you all a video that CSIS produced that is a bit of a summary of a three-year project that we have been doing on unification. It's a very short video just to get us started. So if we, and I'm sorry, we don't have the big screen, so you're all going to have to look this way to watch the video. So whoever is rolling the video, go ahead and roll it. Unification is a question of when, not if. Whether sudden through the collapse of the North or gradual through increased contact between the two sides, unification will be a challenge. However, it'll also present an opportunity to generate growth and peace in Asia. Regardless of the speed of unification, there are medium to longer term issues to tackle in knitting the two societies together. A first-of-its-kind groundbreaking study looked at past examples of unification related and state-building tasks in several countries. The lessons learned unveiled five key lessons for Korean unification. One, internal migration will be more chaotic than external migration. Conventional wisdom is that refugees will flood across Yalu and Tumen rivers to China and others will seek to move south. However, migration experts find that people generally don't want to leave their homes, especially if they have food and feel that they're secure. Those who know someone who successfully migrated are likely to move, but since most North Koreans don't know anyone who did, high migration outflow isn't guaranteed. The bigger problem will be internally displaced persons as people try to come to the city or look for family members. This will stress already vulnerable food and security systems, which means having plans to provide food and security quickly in the north post unification will be critical. Two, re-establishing a health infrastructure will be challenging. Despite a state health system, North Korea struggles with significant disease problems including measles, TB, smallpox and cholera among others. The average height of a 7.5-year-old North Korean boy is approximately 3 inches shorter as compared with his South Korean counterpart. The average weight of a 7.5-year-old North Korean boy is approximately 7.3 kilograms less than his South Korean counterpart. Experts from efforts in other regions stressed restoring the health infrastructure is a top priority for unification to limit disease and to gain the trust of the North Korean people. However, solutions cannot be imposed from outside. They must be tailored to the situation at hand. And doctors have to work with whatever coping mechanisms North Koreans have developed. Currently NGOs have been successful locally in North Korea, but they will need help scaling up to a national level. Three, transitional justice must be viewed as reconciliation, not revenge. The common view is that all of the North Korean bad guys in the party, military and intelligence circles should be prosecuted and thrown in jail. However, countries such as South Africa and Mali show that this is not the ideal solution. Justice that seeks high-profile acts of vengeance will not create reconciliation. It will create an us-versus-them attitude and breed fear. Yes, some will go to jail, but others should be offered alternatives. For example, the nuclear director should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, but perhaps amnesty could be given to scientists in order to learn important details about the clandestine nuclear program. Four, economic opportunity could exist under the shambles. Most think the North Korean economy is in shambles and that unification will be too expensive. It is true that the average South Korean is about 25 times richer than the average North Korean. In comparison at the time of unification, West Germans were about twice as rich as East Germans. To this day, Germany is still working to achieve economic equality. However, the economic situation may not be that dire and potential does exist in North Korea. It has significant natural resources and relatively high social capital, including education, literacy and urbanization. In a unified Korea, the North's literate labor force could be married up with the South's capital and management. We have seen pockets of such potential in K-Song. The greatest underestimated resource is the entrepreneurial potential of the North Korean people, which is very high as evidenced in the growth of formal and informal markets. Five, unification as a driver of regional peace and cooperation. Unification needs to be led by Koreans with support from the United States as well as other regional powers. The spectrum of support might range from strong U.S. to reluctant China. However, U.S., Chinese, Japanese and Russian experts in the project all agreed that the process of unification needs to end not in a system of 19th century balance of power politics, but in a 21st century security community. Saying the groundwork of support now will ensure that unification will be a driver of peace and cooperation for the region. The potential of unification to bring North Korea fully into Northeast Asia promises short-term costs, but unification can also offer an enormous upside that can benefit the entire region. No need for you to clap, that's fine. Again, so that video will be posted on the CSIS website. There's a book that's attached to that video that will be coming out probably in the next year or so, but you'll be able to see it on the website. I would now like to introduce our co-host for this event, Professor Suk Jong Lee, who is president of the East Asia Institute. Good morning. Hi. Mr. Minister Yu-Gil-Jae, who will arrive shortly, and the Honorable Assistant Secretary Daniel Lossel, and the EIA Chairman Ha Young-Sung, and also former Deputy Secretary General, Secretary Richard Amitiji, who will arrive shortly as well. And this thing is, guess, I'd like to welcome everyone. And on behalf of East Asia Institute, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Korea Global Forum, and this forum was established to discuss issues related to the unification of the two Koreas, and also to seek international support for our efforts to become one Korea again. It is our great pleasure to be able to bring this forum to the great city of America and look forward to learning much through this unique opportunity to the peaceful unification of the two Koreas is an existential issue for Koreans, in which we desire to see the restoration of unified Korean ethnic nation states. As we share historical memories, a common language, and sister and cultural roots, the division of Korean Peninsula into two different political systems remains by the short interlude in the Korean history, a history that spans many millennia. The load to unification is weighed down by many challenges, including how to reconcile different ideologies, and how to best integrate two Koreas, which are very utterly different political economic systems. However, we believe that unification will install permanent peace on the Peninsula, which is important for all nations who have a stake in the Northeast Asian region, such as your own. Unification will also improve the lives of our brothers and sisters in North Korea, bringing about major economic benefits for both sides. We don't know when unification will occur and what kind of path unification will take. The only thing we can do is prepare. In this spirit, President Park Geun-hae recently launched her presidential committee to explore ideas and feasible projects that can help facilitate economy, legal, and socio-cultural integration of the two Koreas. Although unification is essentially a Korean pre-logitive and responsibility, I believe that it matters to international society a great deal. Inside of Korea, unification is most significant to the United States, I think, and we think. As a peacekeeper on the Korean Peninsula, and in the Northeast Asian region at large, and also USA as a champion of human rights and humanitarianism, American leaders and her public would have a keen interest in the task of uniting two Koreas. During the importance of the cross-aligned relationship between South Korea and the USA, a device and assistance from our American friends and colleagues is central in bringing into guide the unification process. Therefore, the two subsequent addresses by Assistant Secretary Daniel Russell and our Minister, Yu Ge-je, are very timely and will be invaluable in stimulating our thoughts and discussions. Can we close my welcoming remarks by thanking Dr. Victor Cha and his staff at CSIs for organizing this forum together with the EAI. They have been simply marvelous and it was a great pleasure to work with them. Thank you. Thank you, Sook Jung. It really is a pleasure to partner with EAI, the East Asia Institute, on this project. So thank you very much. Now I'd like to introduce our speaker for this morning, Assistant Secretary Daniel Russell. As many of you here know, he is the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is a career member of the Foreign Service and probably the most experienced person on Asia in the Obama Administration today. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary in 2013, Danny served at the White House as the special assistant to the President and at the National Security Council as the Senior Director for Asian Affairs as well as a Director for Asian Affairs for Japan and Korea. Before joining the NSC in January of 2009, he served as Director of the Office of Japan Affairs and had assignments as U.S. Consul General in Osaka, Kobe, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy at the Hague, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus, Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. For those of you who don't know the State Department, this is like the elite. He is like, he has all the top positions. In addition, so a great deal of experience in both Japan and Korea but also outside of there and also had the honor of serving as Advisor to the Ambassador to Japan and former Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield. Mr. Russell is educated at Sarah Lawrence College and University College, University of London. So it's our pleasure this morning to welcome Assistant Secretary Russell. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, Victor. Thank you, Dr. Lee, Chairman Ha. It's a pleasure and an honor for me to be part of the same program as Minister Liu and Rich Armitage, a friend and a mentor. It's also a pleasure to be at CSIS. CSIS really does an extraordinary job in terms of policy development, stimulating new thinking, generating scholarship just as we've seen on the video earlier, and also providing a critical eye and critical feedback on the implementation of U.S. foreign policy, which we appreciate and particularly we appreciate the fact that it's bipartisan, frankly, nonpartisan feedback, which is essential to us. I also want to express my support and respect for the East Asia Institute, which is an important voice from the Republic of Korea. Your input helps us in the administration to foster and to engineer our policy, our strategy, our rebalance in ways that reflect not only American interests but the interests of our partners of the region and of the world. So I thank you. We're closing in on the holiday season, which is a very appropriate time for a conference on unification because it's a season of hope. And we all hope and work in an effort to address the most troubling and difficult vestige of the Cold War, the division of the Korean Peninsula. Now for my part in the State Department, this fall has been a period of transition. The team in the State Department that helps the President and the Secretary formulate and policy and manage our vital relationship with Korea has undergone some changes. President Obama, to our surprise, stopped by Ambassador Lippert's swearing-in ceremony at the State Department a month ago to wish him well and to wish him off, marks off to a great start in Seoul. He's already found a sort of magic charm to introduce himself and his family to the Korean people, his now-famous Bassett Hound, Grigsby, who's a media rock star in Korea. And Mark's predecessor, Ambassador Song Kim, a very respected diplomat and a dear friend of mine, I'm glad to say is back in Washington in a new dual-hatted role, both as the special representative for North Korean policy, but also as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Korea and for Japan. And someone, you know well, Sid Seiler has moved over from the NSC and is now our special envoy for the Six-Party Talks. I won't belabor the biography because these people are very well known to you all, but suffice it to say that we've filled successfully the big shoes of Jim Zumwalt and Glenn Davison. In the State Department, we joke that we've built our K-team, the Korea team, with our A-team. So as the season, holiday season approaches and as the year draws to conclusion, it's a time for us to reflect on the accomplishments and the challenges of 2014. It's also a time to look forward to the prospects for the new year. And so as you begin your program today, I want to share my thoughts on the U.S.-ROK relationship and share my thoughts on how we are meeting and how we will continue to meet the regional and the global challenges together and on the Korean Peninsula and on the future of the Korean Peninsula as well. In short, it's really been a remarkable year in the U.S.-ROK relationship, and that comes on top of a series of very successful years in which an already close relationship between us has grown even closer. This year in 2014, I think we've strengthened our alliance, we've increased trade and investment, and we've worked more seamlessly than ever on challenges all around the world. And looking ahead, 2015 clearly is shaping up to be another very significant year. But let me just do a quick overview of 2014, if I may. In January, we concluded an agreement that provides important resources to sustain the presence of U.S. forces in Korea for many years to come, and I'll offer more on that in a moment. In April, I had the honor of accompanying President Obama when he visited the Republic of Korea for an unprecedented fourth time, reaffirming our alliance and our global partnership as well as the close personal ties between our two presidents. In October, we updated the framework governing the transfer of operational control of alliance forces during wartime, OPCON transfer, and I'll come back to that also in a moment. And we had a very productive 2-plus-2 meeting in which Secretaries Kerry and Hegel hosted their rock counterparts, Ministers Yun and Han. That was only the third meeting of its kind. And at the same time that the foreign and defense ministers were meeting, our Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, was in Seoul with an important trade mission. And then in November, during President Obama's second Asia trip of 2014, he again had the opportunity to confer in depth with President Park on the margins of APEC, of the East Asia Summit, and of the G20. Throughout the year, we've also made significant progress in implementing the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, KORUS-FTA. This agreement helps ensure that our two economies continue to provide a foundation of shared prosperity that strengthens all aspects of the relationship. And our growing partnership also benefits from the large number of Korean students studying in the United States, as well as Americans studying in Korea. And that number is up an eye-popping 300 percent over just the last decade. Last year, South Koreans were the ninth-largest group of visitors to the United States, spending something on the order of $6 billion while they're here. And in the realm of energy security, we're finalizing a successor civil nuclear agreement, what's called a 1-2-3 agreement, that reflects the Republic of Korea's major status as a global nuclear supplier. And that agreement also reflects the tremendous importance that we both place on non-proliferation on nuclear security and on nuclear safety. So out of all these accomplishments, what I want to come back to and highlight are the two that modernize the workings of our alliance. The first is Afghan transfer, which is hugely important to South Koreans as well as to us. The new framework for Afghan transfer puts us on a path that takes into account the critical defense capabilities needed on the Korean Peninsula, as well as the evolving security situation on the peninsula and in the region. The second thing that I mentioned in modernizing the alliance is the Special Measures Agreement, or the SMA. This is the agreement that ensures that there will be continued ROK resources available to troops from both nations to ensure that we have the capabilities, as the commander of U.S. forces Korea is fond of saying, to fight tonight if needed. These agreements aren't flashy, they're not necessarily big news, but they're hugely important because more than six decades after the armistice along the 38th parallel, the North Korean threat, the military threat clearly still remains. And even as we hope, plan, and prepare for a brighter, more peaceful, and united future for the Korean Peninsula, we must still guard against the perils of the present. These perils include, of course, North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, North Korea's missile programs. They include also the risk of conventional and cyber attacks. But they also include challenges such as natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent and more costly, and they encompass threats from violent extremism like ISIL, from global health threats like Ebola, and from climate change. These are global challenges that affect us all. The U.S. Rock Alliance is evolving to meet these challenges and more, while safeguarding and promoting South Korea's emergence on the global stage. That emergence requires modern bases, it requires stable funding, and it requires the continued development of the Rock's critical military capabilities that the SMA and the OPCON agreements help to provide. Beyond our bilateral relationship, it's been a dramatic year for the ROK's relations with the world and our global work together. In March in Dresden, President Park Geun-hye laid out a comprehensive vision for peaceful reunification. In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping became the first president of the PRC to visit Seoul before visiting Pyongyang, or without ever having met the North Korean leader. The significance of this fact is crystal clear to all of you, I don't have to belabor it. But I would add that the impact and the importance of President Xi's visit to Seoul was augmented by the firm and the solid policy pronouncements and statements that President Park herself made during that visit. And as 2014 went on and the dangers from the Ebola virus and from ISIL heated up, South Korea stepped forward to respond. It contributed funding to each of these fights and is even now preparing to send a group of health workers into the Ebola hot zone in West Africa this month. Later in October, the ROK hosted the conference of the ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, which produced the Busan Consensus. And this was South Korea's first year hosting the secretary of the new UN Green Climate Fund. The ROK has pledged $100 million to that fund. And as President Obama's recent pledge of $3 billion to that fund shows, the U.S. places an immense importance on this global initiative. And very importantly, the ROK is wrapping up a historic and a successful two-year stint on the UN Security Council. You know, it's really remarkable when you take a step back and think about it. 25 years ago, the Republic of Korea wasn't even a full member of the UN. But at that time, a certain young diplomat named Yun Myung Se set out to change it. I happened to remember it because I had the privilege of working with him back in 1990. We worked together on a strategy that ultimately got Russia and China to go along with making both Korea's full members of the UN. That also led directly to the process of normalization between Seoul and Moscow as well as Beijing. Now, barely a quarter century later, South Korean is the secretary general of the UN. The Republic of Korea is on the Security Council. And over the past two years, South Korean diplomats led discussions in the Security Council on a whole range of pressing topics, how to protect civilians in armed conflict, how to counter proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological nuclear weapons. Now when it comes to nuclear weapons, no country lives closer to the threat than the Republic of Korea. And let me briefly mention what we have done about the North Korean threat in 2014, both in terms of our efforts to curb the threat from the North's nuclear and ballistic missile program, but also our work regarding human rights. On the nuclear issue, I've already mentioned the military pillar of our strategy and how we are modernizing the alliance. There's also, you could say, an economic pillar and a diplomatic pillar to our work, and that means that we've strongly supported new Security Council sanctions and increased global enforcement of the sanctions and the resolutions in order to block proliferation and stem the illicit activities that fund or support North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. At the same time, we're working with our partners to show the North Korean leadership convincingly that a diplomatic path is open to them. We've gone the extra mile to reach out to the North Korean leadership and encourage it to engage in authentic and credible negotiations. But for a negotiating process to have any realistic prospect of succeeding, there are conditions that it is reasonable and necessary for North Korea to meet. These are conditions simply in line with the commitments, the important commitments that the DPRK undertook in the September 2005 joint statement of the Six-Party Talks. The bottom line is this. North Korea can never achieve the security and the prosperity that it desires while also pursuing nuclear weapons. This concept of Byung Jin, the notion that North Korea can somehow develop its economy while it's also continuing to develop nuclear and missile offensive capabilities, it's not a policy, it's a pipe dream. It will not happen. North Korea can't have its cake and eat it too. Our strategy raises the cost of continued defiance and ultimately leaves the DPRK no viable alternative but to honor its commitments and to come into compliance with its international obligations. First and foremost, with its obligation to irreversibly and verifiably denuclearize. Now at the same time in the course of 2014, the U.S. and the ROK worked with international partners on behalf of the North Korean people to shine a light on the North's human rights horrors and to highlight the responsibility of its country's leaders for the United States. In February, the Landmark Commission of Inquiry report laid out these violations in really devastating detail and in September, Foreign Minister Yoon and Secretary Kerry joined the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zahid and Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida in a multilateral high level event on the margins of the UN General Assembly focusing on human rights. The first ever such event at the UN General Assembly and after that the UN's third committee passed a resolution encouraging the Security Council to consider referring the DPRK to the International Criminal Court, the ICC, based on the facts documented in the Commission of Inquiry's report. The full General Assembly will be taking up this resolution and North Korea is clearly starting to feel the heat. Their statements pushing back on this pressure have amplified to a near daily drumbeat of blasts in the past few months. This year they even felt the need to send their foreign minister to New York at the UN General Assembly for the first time in some 15 years as part of an apparent charm offensive around the world. So clearly our bilateral and our multilateral solidarity across this range of issues forms the basis on which our security is protected, our values are advanced and ultimately the Korean Peninsula can be peacefully unified. But it's also important to note that U.S. rock cooperation and the rock's global role go way beyond the problems of the DPRK. Secretary Kerry said it in October, the Republic of Korea has emerged as a key global player dedicated as the United States is to universal values like human rights, democracy and the rule of law. So South Korea along with Japan and Australia and others is a key U.S. partner in the regional institutions that help apply these values and make them real. We see for example the emergence of global Korea in the ASEAN format including the ASEAN plus three group as well as in APAC as well as in the G20 and elsewhere. I think in just a couple of hours the ASEAN ROK summit opens in Busan celebrating 25 years in that relationship. And as leaders from every part of society across the region are debating and discussing the future of the Asia Pacific, President Park has put forward her Northeast Asia peace and cooperative initiative as well as the concept of trust politic. Now the achievements of the year that's drawing to a close form a springboard for us for the work that we seek to undertake in 2015. And there's some real opportunities and some unique challenges coming up to this next year. And let me touch quickly just on three climate, health and water as examples. With the Paris meetings on climate change coming up, 2015 will be a big year for the greatest challenges we face as a planet, climate change. And South Korea as the host of the Green Climate Fund can do a lot. In light of the Ebola virus 2015 will be a big year for global health security. South Korea is an important player as host of the high level global health security agenda meeting. And as we face water challenges from the Mekong to the Maldives to the Middle East, South Korea is hosting the Triennial World Water Forum, a hugely important gathering of tens of thousands of water policy makers and practitioners. But next year will be an extremely important year for a fourth reason. That reason is history. And it is our fervent hope that 2015 will be the year when the historical anniversaries in Asia become milestones and cease to be millstones. We will, as you know, mark the 70th anniversary of Korean independence, which of course coincides to the 70th anniversary of the division of the peninsula at the end of World War II. This coincides also with the 50th anniversary year of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and Japan. And as two democracies, two free market economies, two key allies of the United States, I can't overstate the importance that we place on strong, healthy, good relations between the Republic of Korea and Japan. I'm hopeful that we will see progress this year on sensitive issues and important legacy issues and an enduring improvement in overall relations. Fostering that improvement is a priority for the United States. Now, I spoke at a length about the vitality of the U.S.-R.O.K. alliance and the extensive global partnership that we enjoy. And I've done so because these provide the context to thinking and planning for Korean unification. The most problematic legacy of World War II, this great divide, is the separation of North and South Korea, which is of course the focus of your work today. As President Obama said in Seoul when we visited in 2012, the currents of history cannot be held back forever. The deep longing for freedom and dignity will not go away. The day will come when the Korean people at long last will be whole and free. In the meantime, the U.S. strongly supports President Park's policy on unification. The U.S. extended an open hand to the North and proposed a step-by-step trust-building process. She's appropriately balanced pragmatism and principle. She's founded the Unification Committee, which along with Chairman Ha visited Washington earlier this week and held consultations with me and my colleagues at the State Department. She's painted a vivid picture of the benefits that the North Korean people could reap from steps towards reconciliation and denuclearization, as well as the benefits that reunification will bring to South Korea as well as to the region. The United States firmly supports this vision. We will never accept a permanent division of the Korean Peninsula. So the ROK and the United States will continue to do everything we need to do to keep the peace on the peninsula through a combination of deterrence and a strong, allied defense. We will continue to maintain stability in the region to promote universal values and human rights. And we will continue our cooperation to build broad-based and sustainable economic growth. All of these steps help in the preparation for unification. So let me end simply by saying sincerely thank you for your efforts here in the conference that you're embarking on today. The work you're doing on unification is important. For one thing, these meetings and this conference allow leading thinkers to interact, to intersect, to identify trends, to identify opportunities and think through both the problem set and pathways to a solution. This effort in these conferences also push back against a fatal, a fatalism. And it's a false fatalism that the situation can never be remediated, that the division of the peninsula is a permanent one, that the North Korean nuclear program can never be unwound and eliminated. The artificial division of the peninsula, the attendant dangers are not permanent, should not be permanent, must not be permanent. So what you're doing today in my view is helping the U.S. to prepare, helping the Iraq prepare and helping all friends of the Korean people to prepare for the day that we all hope will come soon. So thank you very much. Thank you, Victor. Thank you, Danny. That was really fantastic, a fantastic statement of what has happened, the policy issues, the priorities and also the agenda for 2015 really. Thank you very much. I know you have to go but if you have time for a couple of questions we'd be quite grateful for that. So I will recognize anyone from the floor, please ask a question, don't make a statement and if you make a statement I'm going to cut you off. So Joe Basta. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today. It's great to have you. You mentioned the great dangers emanating from North Korea in terms of both their nuclear and missile program and proliferation as well as their human rights record. And you talked about multilateral solidarity. But of course there's one nation that has the greatest influence over North Korea that is not in solidarity with the international community and that's the People's Republic of China. We saw in the film that the danger that China constantly touts of a migration across the border is not realistic. The real migration would be from North to South Korea. I wonder if you could comment on China's role as a responsible or irresponsible stakeholder in these issues. Yes, thank you very much. We are hugely mindful, as past administrations have been, of the important role that China plays and must play in managing and ultimately in resolving the myriad of threats posed by the DPRK and their quest for nuclear and nuclear capable ballistic missile powers. Last month I sat in the room when both President Obama and President Xi Jinping in Beijing met with the international press and I was struck by a remarkable commonality in the messages and that is a commonality between the two presidents and between the US and China that was reflected in those and in other diplomatic meetings as well. The Chinese have made clear publicly and privately that they regard North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons as a significant threat, that they regard the risk of proliferation and missile development to be destabilizing and that they are committed to achieving denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Importantly and increasingly the signals from China seem to indicate the same skepticism that we hold regarding Kim Jong-un's international effort to convince the world that it should engage economically with the DPRK but turn a blind eye to the ongoing nuclear program. There is mounting evidence that the Chinese do not consider Byung-jin a workable or a desirable strategy and there is considerable evidence that the Chinese have manifested their concern and indeed their displeasure with that DPRK policy in very practical ways. I cited one which was the strategically huge decision by President Xi Jinping to visit Seoul while holding the DPRK at arms length but there are others in terms of the management of the borders and the extent of energy and economic assistance to the DPRK that go hand in hand with the US strategy which is given that relinquishing its nuclear weapon capabilities or programs may well be the last thing on earth that Kim Jong-un wants to do. It's incumbent on the international community to remove the alternatives and to sharpen the choice so that reluctant though he may be embarking on meaningful credible authentic negotiations to freeze to roll back and to eliminate the nuclear program is the only viable course available to him. So while it's the view of the United States that there is more that China can do by way of applying pressure and while it's the view of China that there's more that the United States can do by way of diplomatic engagement I see a broad alignment in strategic interest and commitment to cooperation on both sides. Thanks. I think we have time for one more given his schedule so yes. Mike's coming. Thank you very much. My name is Tatsuya Mizumoto from Jiji Press. Regarding the relationship between Japan and Korea so in order to improve the current bad situation in both countries so what are you going to expect to utilize Japan and Korea in next year? Well as I've said the improvement and the restoration of open friendly fully cooperative ties between Japan and the Republic of Korea is a high priority for the United States. That priority drove the decision by President Obama to host an important first ever trilateral summit with President Park and President and Prime Minister Abe in the spring when all three leaders were in the Hague for the Nuclear Security Summit. The global economy is too fragile for two major economies in Asia to be at odds. The global and regional security situation is too fraught for two major allies in the Asia Pacific to have anything less than unhindered and full cooperation and the global agenda is too full for these two leading democracies to do anything other than cooperate and collaborate in an open and unconstrained way. Now there are serious and painful issues which remain as the legacy of the previous century issues that must be dealt with. No one party can solve those legacy issues alone. It takes continued and sincere efforts by all concerned to lead to a mutually satisfying resolution that will be durable and that will open the door to the fully unfettered cooperation that the people of Japan, the people of the Republic of Korea, the people of the United States and in fact the countries in the region as well as the global economy seeks and would benefit from. Thank you very much. Before you applaud, he needs to leave so I would ask you all to please stay seated. That's including the press so that he can get out of here. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for taking your seats. So we are very happy to hear from Assistant Secretary Russell this morning on a quite substantive speech on Korea. Rarely do we have the opportunity to hear him give a speech specifically on Korea so we are very grateful for that. And now we would like to begin the second part of our program with Deputy Secretary Armitage and of course the Minister of Unification, Minister Ryu. Let me begin my first introducing Deputy Secretary Armitage who is as you all know President of Armitage International but prior to that from 2001 to 2005 he served as the United States Deputy Secretary of State. Prior to that he held many diplomatic positions that covered both East Asia, Southeast Asia as well as the Middle East and has been decorated by numerous, numerous governments in the world for all of his service on behalf of the United States government and in the promotion of good relations between the United States and a countless number of countries. We are very grateful that he was able to join us this morning and I will turn the stage over to Deputy Secretary Armitage who will offer some remarks as we introduce the Unification Minister. Thank you very much Dr. Cha, Ambassador Ahn. Nice to see you again sir, ladies and gentlemen. I was quite a good crowd. I've got a heck of a lot better day-to-day than we had yesterday and now we only have to contend with the wind and not the rain but the day's going to get better yet when we hear from our guest speaker tonight. A man who as far as I'm concerned is the key architect of Mrs. Park's trust policy. In others it is not a secret that there are some in the United States that are a little skeptical right now of what Mrs. Park is doing with China. Some people here in the United States feel that perhaps there's a putting a little distance between the United States and getting closer to China. I myself think this is very good common sense on the part of President Park. They have great economic interests in China and indeed she's got great economic interest in engaging the North and standing firm against provocations but getting China to use what influence they are willing to exert on North Korea. So as I described our speaker this morning as a gentleman who is the key architect of trust politics and as a man as far as I can see whose whole life has been in preparation for this very job. A BA in MA in political science from Korea University laterally, a PhD in 1995, 20 years ago. He's been a researcher at the Far Eastern Institute of Far Eastern Studies, been an advisor for a previous minister of unification, was an advisor for the President in security and foreign policy. He's been a professor of North Korean studies in a very real way. His whole life has led him to this position and I can assure you, Minister Ryu, you're going to have a very interested and engaged I would say student body here as a former professor. We're not quite students any longer but you'll find there is an inquisitive I think as students. If I may have the honor of introducing our guest speaker, the Minister of Unification, the Republic of Korea, Dr. Ryu Kiel Jae. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I'm Ryu Gil Jae, the Minister of Unification of the Republic of Korea. Thank you for the former Deputy Secretary Richard Amity Jae's very warm introduction. Thank you, thank you again. It's my great honor to speak to you at today's Korea Global Forum. President John Hamley, Professor Victor Cha, distinguished guests from the U.S. and abroad, I'm excited to see you all here in Washington, D.C. This city is a very special place for me as I have many fond memories of Washington. Decades ago when I was a young scholar studying North Korea, I spent many months in Washington visiting the National Archives almost every day to look through documents captured during the Korean War in order to explore these lost pieces of North Korea history. I've had the opportunity to stay in D.C. twice since then and have gotten to know many experts and scholars. Today I'm glad to see many good old friends here. It means a lot to me for this event to be held here in Washington, D.C. and to have discussions on preparation for Korean Unification and Korea-U.S. cooperation. As many of you may know, the Korea Global Forum was launched in 2010 by the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea. With a view to have meaningful and lively discussions with the international community on Korean Peninsula issues. For the last five years, many scholars and government officials of various countries have shared their valuable insights in the forum. I believe that today's conference will also be a platform for strategic communication among all of you. Distinguished guests, for the last two years, the Park Geun-hye administration has consistently advanced its trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula. The trust-building process was born from a critical retrospective of the history of inter-Korean relations. The two Koreas experienced division and war and have endured mainly constant conflict and confrontation with only momentary instances of dialogue, exchange, and cooperation. There were some occasions when we temporarily moved from conflict and confrontation to dialogue and cooperation, but the fundamental nature of the relations did not change. That is why the ROK government came up with the trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula. Through this policy, we aim to ensure consistency and continuity throughout the process as well as predictability of our cooperation projects in order to build mutual trust, although it may take time and North Korea may not be cooperative. It has been two years since our government took office, and today there are some people who argue that the trust-building process is not working, inter-Korean relations are not improving, and the ROK government is not playing a leading role in the relations. I do not agree with such criticisms. The root cause of the problem is not the trust-building process itself, but the very nature of inter-Korean relations. Ironically, the North Korean regime's survivability is based on its existential need for an adversary, which is South Korea. And so, hostility between the two Koreas has lasted for nearly seven decades now. At the same time, the Kim Jong-un regime is only in its third year now, as we can see today, during the transition period, both internal management and outreach are required in a way that helps establish the legitimacy of the new leadership. That is why Pyongyang has repeatedly reached out to Seoul and Washington only to break its promises and return to provocation since Kim Jong-un took power. Pyongyang's behavior during the time of the ancient Asian games in October is a prime example. At the time, top North Korean officials visited the South, I met with them and talked about improving inter-Korean relations, and we agreed to hold another round of high-level talks. However, North Korea did not honor this promise that is because they took issue with the balloon launching into North Korea by some South Korean NGOs. But these balloons were being launched even before the agreement. North Korea will continue to go back and forth between outreach and provocation in order to ensure the stability of Kim Jong-un's leadership and the continuity of its regime. And that is exactly the reason why the trust-building process on the Korean peninsula still makes sense and is required. The trust-building process does not adhere to produce short-term achievement. Instead, it aims to correct the wrong practices one by one and change the fundamental nature of inter-Korean relations, even though it might take time. Therefore, the South Korean government will stick to its original intention with a long-term perspective in mind, and we will continue to push ahead the trust-building process. Distinguished guests, the year 2015 will mark the 70th year of the division of the Korean peninsula. The year 2045, a mere generation later, would mark the 100th year. After such a long time, Korean unification might become a mission impossible. President Park's comparison of unification to Bonanza had the primary intention to boost enthusiasm about unification among the Korean society. For many South Korean people, especially younger citizens, unification is not a very pressing issue. The time to work seriously to change this attitude is now. The South Korean people, as the main actors of unification, should accept their task and have a sense of responsibility before it is too late. It was with this understanding that the Park Geun-hae administration launched the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation. The committee involves both public and private parties to discuss unification together and make preparations for it. With the launch of the committee, the Park Geun-hae government is further accelerating unification preparation projects across the board. However, I do not believe that unification will be achieved solely by the effort of the Korean people. I believe that only when the international community, including the United States, supports our goal and works together with us for it, the people's dreams of unification will finally come true. Also, the benefits of unification will not be confined to the Korean Peninsula. The Korean unification will make tremendous contributions to the peace and prosperity of the Northeast Asian region and the world as a whole. It will provide a new growth momentum for not only the economies of Northeast Asia, but also the global economy by reconnecting Eurasia to the Pacific. Distinguished guests, the Republic of Korea has emerged from the ashes of war and achieved remarkable industrial and democratic development. Throughout our long story of labor and success, which has been admired as the miracle of the Han River, the United States has always been our closest ally and best friend. In particular, the alliance between our two countries provided strong deterrence against North Korea's provocations and ensured a firm security posture on the peninsula, thereby becoming the key foundation of our policy toward North Korea. Today, the ROK-US alliance is at its best. It has become a truly global partnership going beyond the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast Asian region. Distinguished guests, on the basis of such a strong alliance, I believe that the Republic of Korea and the United States should now explore more creative and diverse approaches to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue. This issue is not only between the South and North Korean peoples, but it is a global one directly linked to the national interest of the United States as well as Northeast Asian countries. For the interests of both of our countries, the issues of North Korea's nuclear programs and human rights violations should be tackled now. Of course, both of our countries have experiences of being betrayed at the hands of Pyongyang. For all types of North Korean problems, including nuclear weapons and human rights infringement, it is extremely difficult to find solutions because these problems are directly linked to the very survival of the regime. However, I believe that Seoul and Washington should not be frustrated by the failure of the past and should look for innovative approaches and move forward with patience. By doing so, our two countries will be able to ensure the legitimacy of our policy toward North Korea, thereby encouraging more countries to support our policy and join in our effort. If our two countries agree on a strategic division of work and build a strong cooperative framework involving the whole international community, we may be able to change North Korea's strategic interests. Distinguished guests, let me elaborate briefly on the strategic cooperation between our two countries. Until now, Seoul and Washington focused on inducing Pyongyang to change by cooperatively putting pressure upon it. However, to make the pressure more effective, dialogues and cooperation are also necessary. Our two countries should therefore strengthen our coordination for engagement as well. We will need to show Pyongyang clearly what it can earn by giving up the path of provocation and isolation and choosing the path of dialogue and cooperation. It will be important to help North Korea actually see the benefits of cooperation with South Korea and the international community. This will also be a way to pragmatically improve the quality of life and the human rights situation of the North Korean people. If Seoul and Washington each fulfill their roles for these shared goals, I am confident that we can bear tangible fruits. Distinguished guests, the Park Geun-hye administration is preparing for unification. With an aim to make not only South and North Koreans, but the whole global society, happier and with a unified Korea. Personally, I like to put it this way. We need to get three wheels turning together to achieve a unification that will serve for people's happiness. One wheel means improving the inter-Korean relations, and another one is building consensus on unification among the South Korean society. These two wheels are certainly important. However, the third wheel, which represents cooperation with the international community, is also critical. For the unification of the Korean Peninsula, more than anything else, participation of the international community, including the United States, in the process of unification preparation is indispensable. If we look at history, I believe the German unification was possible thanks to the close cooperation of the international community, including the U.S. If Washington strongly supports and assists Korean unification, I believe that we will be able to make the dreams of both of our countries, dreams of a unified Korea, peace in Northeast Asia, and shared prosperity of the whole world all come true. Let me end by saying that in today's discussions, I hope that you explore many practical ways to improve inter-Korean relations and to upgrade the coordination framework for North Korean policy between our two countries. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for a very substantive and profound speech we really do appreciate it. The minister has agreed to take some questions. He delivered his speech in English, but we have the aid of an able interpreter to take any questions that you might have for him. So if you could just identify yourself, and as we did this morning, please, no statements, just a question, that would be greatly appreciated. Yes, David. Hi, David. Wait for the mic, David. Thank you. Very encouraging remarks. Could you comment on the status of President Park and his good efforts to build a Northeast Asia regional peace and security mechanism and how neighbors like Mongolia, President Elvedorges, good neighbor policy and efforts to build a little bit hard dialogue and obviously very trusted by both North and South Korea might be a help to her efforts to build a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism? Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me speak in Korean with the help of the very good translator. To be honest, I think the United States' cooperation with the U.S. is more than just a cooperation. The United States has maintained its security in the United States for the past 60 years. In particular, Korea has achieved a miracle compared to the capital. We have successfully finished the cooperation with the U.S. I think the power of such a strong ally in the United States is the most important asset in the future even though we are all working together. First of all, my case says, Thank you for your question. For the Korean Peninsula issues and I think the cooperation of the United States actually means something more than just a cooperation. For the last 60 years, the ROK-US alliance has kept the security on the Korean Peninsula and on that basis South Korea has achieved a real miracle. We both successfully achieved economic development and has built a vibrant democracy and I believe that for the next mission of unification as well, the ROK-US alliance will be a key asset. On that basis of a strong alliance between Seoul and Washington, I believe that the cooperation with other nurses, agents, countries is possible and it will be even more effective. We can think of many ways and many areas of cooperation with the nurses, agents, countries. For example, we can build a framework of South Korea, North Korea, and Russian cooperation, the triangular cooperation. And the project is going on in Russia and is a very good example of this triangular cooperation. We can also think of cooperation involving China with the two Koreas. And with Japan, there is no ongoing project right now. But in the near term, I believe that the cooperation project, between Japan and the two Koreas is also possible. I am not personally a historian, but I studied a little bit about the Korean Peninsula policy of the Soviet Union in the era of the freedom from the Japanese Liberation in 1945. And I observed how the neighboring countries thought seriously about what kind of country Korea should become for their interest. The Korean Unification will fundamentally change the order in the Northeast Asia, so for many Northeast Asian countries, it will have a significant impact in their national interest. So it will be very important to ensure that the South Korean unification will be also in their interest, and it will be important to clearly show to the neighboring countries. So in order to do that, I think it is very important to ensure a close cooperation with the neighboring countries, and it will be also important to involve the neighboring Northeast Asian countries in the process of Korean unification. So I believe that it will be important to ensure a close economic and social exchange cooperation with the neighboring countries in order to ensure their support in the process of unification. And I can say that that point is the commonality between the many South Korean initiatives including the trust-building process, the East Asia, Peace and Cooperation Initiative and Eurasia initiatives. Thank you. Hello. Thank you, Minister Chen Weihua, China Daily. You talk about the importance of dialogue, but now the dialogue is in the stalemate going nowhere. So the U.S. has laid out preconditions for dialogue. I mean, can you talk about how flexible South Korea is willing to resume, say, six-party dialogue and how important the six-party dialogue is to you? Thank you. Thank you for the question. Thank you for your question. I think that there are a lot of journalists here today as well, and every time I am in front of the journalist, I get the most nervous since I become the minister. As for the precondition for redemption of the six-party talks, no substantial matching point has been found between North Korea and South Korea and the United States. So I believe that there must be a lot of more discussions to find the matching point, even though this is not my specific purpose of visiting the United States. So it won't be very appropriate to give a very specific comment about this question, but I can say that from the broader perspective, the time to ensure a close cooperation of neighboring countries for the redemption of the six-party talks has come. So that is what I can say at this moment. Especially the close communication and coordination between South Korea and the United States is the most important, and that is one of the reasons why I am here. Next question. Michael Marshall, Global Peace Foundation. Sir, you said earlier that Korean unification would affect the national interests of all the neighboring countries. I wonder what argument you would make to the PRC, to China, to convince them that unification would be in their national interests. They may perceive their national interests to be best served by undertaking an economic colonization of North Korea while maintaining the political division. Thank you. I personally believe that just persuading to the neighboring countries that South Korean unification will be also your interest won't be enough in ensuring their support. There is a South Korean saying that goes you better see first than asking thousands of questions. So the important thing is to really show to the neighboring countries the process of Korean unification that will be interesting in their countries as well. The process really can mean a lot, but it will be important to involve the neighboring countries in the process of unification by having them participate in, for example, many economic cooperation projects, but not confined to economic cooperation. So by doing so, we can really show to the neighboring countries that the South Korean unification with North Korea will be in their interest and it will be beneficial for them as well. And with such experience, I believe that the neighboring countries will become voluntarily supportive to South Korean unification. As the president of North Korea, I believe that what I am doing is, as I said earlier, I believe that we need creative direction. If we take the existing picture and approach the unification problem, I believe that there will be more factors that will be reduced. As the minister of unification of the Republic of Korea, my job requires really a creative approach because there are so many obstacles in the conventional framework of doing the things. So the creative thinking and courageous action are a very important key value in the process of unification. Next question. Yes, right here. No, right here, this gentleman right here. Yes, thank you. It strikes me that one of the most important... You identify yourself first. Of course, I'm Tom Tashi from Princeton University. And it strikes me that one of the most important ingredients here in any effort to convince the stakeholders... Let's try this again. By increasing our understanding of what's going on in North Korea, getting reliable information and reliable data so that we can convince countries that unification might be of an advantage. I think it's a good question. What about the student? Princeton University. Princeton University, what a great project. I studied comparative politics of comparative politics. I know how strong the competitive politics of Princeton University is. Thank you for the very good question from the Princeton University. I studied the comparative politics and I know how strong your universities are in this field. It is clear that it is still very difficult to get the reliable information about North Korea. But recently, North Korea has been working outside of the country. Of course, we are talking about the labor union. But these days there is so-called expert of labor from North Korean side and North Korea is still limited but it is expanding its contact with the outside world. In comparison to the past, it is a little bit easier than before to get to know about what is going on in North Korea. And there are some countries where the residents can visit North Korea relatively easily in comparison to South Korean visitors. But even though you visit North Korea, you cannot really get the information you want because North Korean society is not only close to the external world but it is also close to the inside. So what I recommend to my students is to observe the past of North Korea to understand the present of North Korea to follow the trajectory of history of North Korea. So it will help you to envision what we cannot get to know at this point. Of course, it is true that we lack information on North Korea. It is difficult to understand what North Korea is about and what it really thinks of. But I believe that what is important is about how we deal with North Korea. Yes, right here we have a question. Thank you, Professor Cha. I'm Bai Jie from CSIS. I'm President Fellow of the Fremontshire from China. Thank you for the informative presentation. My question is, you know, actually I followed the Korean Peninsula situation for several years. And President Park Geun-hae, he tabled the unification of Bonanza but also she mentioned about the paradox in North East Asia. Of course, including the Asian region because economically a lot of countries line on the United States and economically line on China. My question is also focusing on the regional cooperation. You know, recently China tabled a lot of, you know, just like one road, one belt and the regional cooperation economic affairs. So my question goes to, you mentioned a lot of, you know, the cooperation and security affairs. But in the future I think the regional cooperation economic area can also bring a very positive impact to the unification process of Korean Peninsula. So how do you think about, you know, the future regional cooperation will bring some, bring the impacts to the unification of the Korean Peninsula? And how do you deal with the relations between the United States and China? So I can explain in Korean maybe, if you permit. Yeah. Oh, good. You can do that. Okay. Thank you. Can you understand? Thank you. Thank you for your very, very broad questions that requires a long-term perspective. And it is true that South Korea needs the cooperation and help of the neighboring countries to achieve unification. And China is really important because it is geopolitically close to the Korean Peninsula. And of course there is no ongoing project between the two Koreas and China, but there are many projects being discussed. And if they are materialized, we can really see how the cooperation between two Koreas and China will look like. And the relations with the United States and China are not only influenced by the Korean Peninsula issue, there are many factors that have impact on these relations. For the Korean unification, I believe that the cooperative atmosphere between the United States and China is very important. I don't think it is really critical, but certainly the close cooperation between the United States and China will help create a very favorable atmosphere for Korean unification. So I believe that it will be important in our future cooperation with China, Russia, and other close neighbors. It will be important for us to maintain our close coordination with the United States, and that will be the direction of how we work in the future. So it will be important for Korea to be able to play a role in creating a cooperative atmosphere between the U.S. and China. Mr. Minister, we want to thank you for taking the time to spend with us. I know you have many meetings here while you are in Washington. And I would like to say that as Deputy Secretary Armitage said, we certainly understand that you are the architect of President Park's policies. And if we ever forget that, Ambassador Ahn is always here to remind us who is the true architect of the policies. So thank you very much for joining us this morning. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you could stay seated until the minister leaves, we'd appreciate it.