 Alive, it's 4 o'clock, I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech, and this is, what is this? This is Think Tech Asia. Think Tech Asia. Yes, that's why I'm here. That's why he's here. This is the time regularly reserved for Ray and Russell Liu, who is in transit right now, so he's not here, but I'm here instead, and so we're going to talk about Think Tech Asia. That's right. I'm going to talk about, you know, you're more than an informed citizen. You're a very well-informed citizen, Ray. When you talk about North Korea, when you talk about North Korea and relations with China, relations with what, South Korea and Japan, relations with Russia, if you will, and certainly relations with Mr. Trump and the United States, and all these are getting very, very complicated now. It's very hard to figure out the dynamic, and it's very hard for poor Donald to figure out, because he has trouble doing, figuring out long strategies. But anyway, Ray, what are your thoughts about what's going on with North Korea? Where are we going with it? North Korea emerged from World War II, and it was a colony, both North and South, of one country, until even through the 50 years under Japanese colonial rule. And of course, during that time, Japanese-implemented education economy also suppressed Korean language and really suppressed nationalism, Korea, as their own country. So when August, September 1945, that was when suddenly the Japanese left police and army and settlers left for Japan, and it was a vacuum. However, in the North, there was a man named Kim who came in, and he became the leader in North, and he was a guerrilla fighter. And the South, the United States came in, and with our own man, Simeon Lee, as President of South Korea, but the South had more people, the North had more resources. So it was an in-balance country from the very start, and then comes the war in 1950, and out of that wreckage of the war, there was still no peace treaty, and if you fast forward to 2017, we have a new leader of North Korea who is the grandson of Mr. Kim, the guerrilla leader, who's 33 years old right now. It looks like he's 17. And he's educated partly in Switzerland abroad, so he must speak English and French and Korean, and he has been developing over the last six months more missile tests than the last several years combined. This has been an area that has struck fear, anger, frustration among all the states, South Korea, Japan, and the United States, and China to a certain degree, and that's how he's proceeding in this game. He's a rogue in every way. I mean, remember, don't forget Sony, don't forget his hacking, state hacking. He's been doing that. And he's also been doing hacking on banks in Asia, are you familiar with that? And finally, I mean, in general, he's been killing even members of his family who he perceives oppose him in some way. So all in all, this guy is a complete rogue, not engaging in any way with the West, refusing to talk to anyone, and not willing to make a deal on any terms about anything. And my question to you, and if you could answer this, you're a better man than I, Gangadun. Why? From the very start as a country, North Korea, it has a memory of the Japanese occupation as well. It was not its own country. So it's based on nationalism, independence, and that it must be its own country from, and enjoying a, and also it looks forward to unification as one country. Now there are people even in South Korea who believe that there's a conspiracy among the great powers, China, Russia, and the U.S., to keep Korea separate. So if they got together as a unified country, they would be a world power. Now, going back to all these activities by the leader, he is really continuing this, all these acts to show that they are independent and should be treated as a great power, a nuclear power, by the West and China and Russia and so forth. And that they have their place in the world. And that they fear that the United States, with the carrier group, with 40,000 soldiers in South Korea, with the new air defense system coming in, the radar spying on North Korea, Japanese jets suddenly appearing accompanying U.S. bombers, flybys by North Korea, these are all, from their perspective, threatening, threatening the independence of Korea. So they must have a nuclear deterrent, so that they will be respected in the world order. Well, I'm wondering about, you know, 33, but it looks younger. I'm wondering about this whole attitudinal thing about finding scapegoats, you know, and doing the kinds of things that dictators do to stay in power, you know, finding, you know, enemies everywhere, behind every tree. And when you do that, you know, it justifies you in killing people, I mean, in your country. It justifies you, it justifies you in building weapons at the expense of even feeding your country. It justifies all this nastiness somehow. But the bottom line, I'm just throwing a possibility at you, is that he should stay in power, he doesn't want to lose being in power. That's why he's paranoid. Well, you referred to the assassination or murder of his half-brother, Kim Jong-un. But there have been others, others around him, his own family. But that one was, I think, if you look at it from his perspective, that he felt that this half-brother was actually being groomed by China. They were paying for him to stay in Macau. They were paying for him to, they were giving him, you know, all kinds of funding. And they were kind of grooming him and kind of seeing if there was an opportunity to insert Kim Jong-un now back into North Korea. This was something that Kim Jong-un feared. And so he said, aha, China, you think that you can control North Korea. Let's see what happens after... He's out of the question. So China immediately doesn't have anybody to slip back in, because that is something for any country to influence a little country. You must have people to replace the current powerful leaders. If you don't have leaders, they're all yes-men to the leader, then you don't have a counter to the leadership. So China is also in a strange spot of not able to influence the political dynamics of North Korea also. Well, yes. And China, I've read it to the point where China doesn't want them crossing the... The refugees from North Korea crossing the Yellow River, because it'll be on them. They'll have to take care of those people, and it'll be a mess because there'll be millions of people, which is interesting because there's only 25 million people in the whole North Korea. But I mean, a half of North Korea would walk away if they could. I think they recognize somehow, even though you can't get media in North Korea, but I think they recognize... Well, it's a military state, so you cannot even move from one village to another. There's no freedom of movement. You're absolutely right. You're stuck in your farming village or town or city. But also, not only the refugees coming to crossing the Yellow River for food and medicine and, you know, a better place, you also suddenly have, if there was unification, South Korean soldiers and U.S. soldiers at the Yellow border. Remember, when they intervened during the Korean War, they had warned the U.S. many times, do not come north, you know, do not come north. This is... you're coming to attack China, if you come up all the yalu. China was warning. Yes, China through it repeatedly. And at the same time, they were sending over 250,000 so-called volunteers and this contributed to great defeat for U.N. forces and they had to retreat back to Seoul and so forth. And the current president's parents also were part of the Hongnam evacuation with the Marines and that's how they ended up in South Korea. So the current president even has relatives, so, you know, family back in North Korea. You're going to find a lot of refugees from North Korea because people regularly escape or try. Right. And it's really sad. It's like East Germany back when, but maybe worse because the repression is that much greater. And it goes back to the question of why? What's his long plan? Would he create this police state, ultimate police state, dumping on the people all the time, making, putting them behind the eight ball on everything and spending all the money he has, everything, I mean, in a poor country. What do we find that the gross domestic product of North Korea is like what? 40 billion dollars. 40 billion as opposed to 600 billion in South Korea. Look at the comparison of that. I think that Molly County budget is a billion dollars now. So that's only 40 times that. They're not doing very well. And they're starving and you know, whatever they say, whatever, you know, they say. But the question is why would he do, what's his long plan? He's educated. He must have a long plan. Aside from staying in power, it's got to be something more complex than that. What does he expect to happen? Also, it's not himself. It's a give and take. Go back to Rome or Carthage. I mean, there are states where there's a leader, but they must have support of the legions of Rome or the military of North Korea. So you see Kim Jong-il surrounded by very senior military all the time. They're clapping away and they get better housing, better food. Kim Jong-un. Right, Kim Jong-il. I'm sorry. The current leader surrounded by senior military officials who get better housing, food, access to better medical treatment. So that's a cadre, a force that really protects them and really benefits from the continuing rule by Kim Jong-un. Well, I mean, really, it's fascinating to watch this happen from his point of view, because does it really get him anywhere to have nuclear? Does it really get him anywhere to threaten people? You know, in fact, there's a lot of people, a lot of companies, multinationals, would go to North Korea in a heartbeat to try to do business because there's a market there. It's a pretty sexy market. Open it up to Western goods and whatnot or, for that matter, Chinese goods. I'm not sure the Chinese goods are there. Although I understand that China sells North Korea missile parts. China's part of the missile problem. In any event, he could have had economic relationships with many countries in the world, all to his benefit. He could have negotiated all kinds of trade deals and enhanced the economy of North Korea. He could have made it a much more successful economy. He chose not to do that. Right, and the philosophy, or really an ideology, Juche, of self-reliance. Remember, going back in time on the colonial rule, Japan did that. And Japan flooded the country with Japanese-made manufactured goods, Japanese education, all kinds of rule. They don't want any of that side. They make their own everything. So $40 billion may not be a lot, but yet they're able to supply their military, supply a meager of rations. It's like being in war. They believe they are in war. And technically, it's true. There is no peace treaty. So he's in a state of constant war. Right. And all these provocations, not only against the United States, but every country in the region, it's really too bad. And it's too bad about the countries that could have an effect. And right after this break rate, we should talk about the relations between the United States and North Korea, zero. The relations between China and North Korea, strange. I mean, strange to us. Relations of South Korea, North Korea, zero. Right, it's complex. Japan, zero. And what could be done to get Kim Jong-un's attention? That's the question in the next part of this show. We'll take a short break. We'll think about that. We'll come right back. This guy looks familiar. He calls himself the ultra fan, but that doesn't explain all this. What? He planned this party, planned the snacks, even planned to coordinate colored shirts, but he didn't plan to have a good time. Now you wouldn't do this in your own house, so don't do it in your team's house. Know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time. Okay, we're back alive. I'm Terry Fidel and I'm with Ray Tsuchiyama, informed citizen today. We're talking about North Korea here on, what is it? Asia in review. No, it's Think Tech Asia. Think Tech Asia. Thank you. Thank you. Next show. Next show. No, what do I have? But you cover so much in Think Tech, so. So anyway, you were talking about Panmunjong and your trip there. And what did you learn there in terms of the humanity of the situation? I visited there on the U.S. military guide there and it is truly a demilitarized area. And that's where representatives of North Korea, China, the U.S. and South Korea met during the early end of the war to really hammer out a armistice. We can't call it a peace treaty. There is no peace treaty. Armistice to cease fire between the opposing forces. The area is a no man's land, so there are North Korean guards who wander in and out. And if you're very close, they are taking a picture of you and you can take a picture of them. And you were told not to make any kind of gesture, like even this kind of gesture, because they'll take a photo and say that, again, a Western provocation or menacing gestitude in the North. The area around is very beautiful. It's full of birds and animals because nobody goes there. No, this is very true. And there are some farms that the South Korean government would give higher stipends for farmers to farm in that area. Across their farms, you can see some people, but there are loudspeakers that blast propaganda in Korean across. And there are Potemkin villages where people seem to be living there, but probably not, that they're used as guard props. Yeah, props, Potemkin village. And, but again, it's a very beautiful area, forested, it looks like areas in the Rocky Mountains, you know. And so it was a feeling of very sadness that here North are all these people who are related to the people of South Korea who it would be wonderful if they met and got together, but they can't. It's not going to happen, you know. I mean, there have been various voices over the years that have called for a reunification, but it seems further away now than it ever was. And South Korea is really angry at North Korea for other provocations, and North Korea is just mean and mad all the time. I wish they'd get human, but that's not in the cards. The whole thing is sort of dealing the other way. And, you know, I just wonder if you think, for example, that Donald Trump can find a way to, you know, break this down somehow and avoid a nuclear war, because I think we're dealing with that. He's going to have the weapons to reach Alaska, Hawaii, and one of these days soon, the mainland as well, and he's wild enough to push the button, that guy. How can Donald Trump deal with that? Well, first of all, I hope that never happens. Of course, we all hope that, but I mean, the threats are real, and he doesn't respond to, you know, ordinary counter threats. He doesn't respond to that, except by getting more of the same. The most recent visit, and I don't want to make it a joke, but Dennis Rodman did visit, and he may have brought a letter to Kim Jong-un. They didn't meet. He became a leader, and Dennis Rodman did not meet this time. At the same moment, Arthur Wambi was returned, unfortunately, in a coma state, and he passed away. This did not help U.S.-North Korean relations at all, and so there has been a few NGOs in North Korea helping in TB and some health-related missions. There are, of course, UN missions into North Korea, again, dealing with health, medical, and so forth, but you're correct that there hasn't been a dialogue. There hasn't been, and the North Koreans are really very proud people. They want to see a high-level equivalent of people visiting and talking, or it can be held in a neutral city. Former President Clinton visited Pyongyang for the release of some journalists there. Sure, that was Vanguard. The Vanguard journalists, two American Korean, Korean American women who erroneously crossed or went to the center of the Yellow River, and the Koreans picked them up, the North Koreans picked them up and put them in jail for a year. Very traumatic. Right. These a ling was long ago. But you can see that it took efforts of a former president who came in and left. And, you know... He got them out. Yeah, that's right. And so there has been, again, I really don't know exactly what to be involved with, but I have some ideas. I think the United States and China, South Korea and Japan also, has to engage people who are North Koreans outside of North Korea. There's a North Korean diaspora in Japan. There are North Korean citizens in Japan. They send back money, remittances to their families in North Korea. That's part of the 40 billion dollars. There are North Korean citizens of China in Jilin province. You see a passport that says, Jin is actually Kim. So the ethnic Koreans who appear, they speak Korean at home. They learn Mandarin. There are also North Koreans who work in Beijing. And there's a Korean town in Beijing, interestingly. And so I think there has to be a lot more interaction of people who can go back. These people can go in and out of North Korea very freely. They speak Korean to engage them and establish much more humanitarian or medical kind of programs. They need it in North Korea. And there have been a lot of interaction in that way. So I think it has to come from grassroots and also at a high level. Okay, but what could that do with Kim Jong-un? He's the one running the plan. That's correct. I think Kim Jong-un wants respect in many ways. He wants to really have a seated table. He wants to talk. And he's of course continuing this program which is cause and consultation in Japan, South Korea, and China, in Russia, and the U.S. But he delights in this also. And I think he needs to have a dialogue in some way to really stop his program. But you see, is it stopping the program entirely or is it bringing him aboard as a respected member into the club of nations with nuclear capability? Because once he loses that, he has no trump card in a way. You heard it here. He has nothing else to do. How could that trump card get him, though? He doesn't seem to want anything. Well, he believes that he can get more things out of economic aid and so forth. Remember, there has been a history of South Korean investment in North Korea, but they all were failures. There were partnerships in travel, in new factories, in a free trade zone. They didn't work out. So I think North Koreans don't want to have a South Korean or Japanese or Chinese or U.S. companies coming in and really controlling and managing their country. What they fear is Libya. They talk about Libya often. They saw, more about Gaddafi overthrown, and then what they perceived was foreigners and money and weapons flowing the country and it became a chaotic place. Which it is now today. And Kim Jong-un looks at what he got in the end. And he doesn't want to end up like that. That's a pretty interesting idea, that he's actually trying to save his own life here because he must realize he's kind of on a fragile tissue there that the country is in terrible straits. And if it falls apart, he's not going to be well liked by anybody. But during that last year, in spite of the $40 billion economy, he has brought in some improvements to housing, to education. This is really strange. But when you think about it, North Korea is the center of hacking. Well, they have developed a cadre of young software engineers who are graduates of the public North Korean school system. It must be good that they are doing something. I think it's a good job in North Korea to get a job at all. But they have gone through a program equivalent to a bachelor's, master's, or PhD in computer science in the U.S. or Japan. Use it for black hat hacking. But again, you can see that they're doing something education-wise that other countries have failed in their own way. It's nice to know they have that industry. But, you know, okay, so Trump has not been successful. I mean, he's been trying to do his win by intimidation routine on them. Doesn't work. And he's been trying to get, you know, China to help him by intimidating China. And that doesn't work either. And I don't know what else he's trying. Maybe he gave up already. I think he kind of gave up already. And I think what he did, Ray, is he turned it over to the military. So you guys, you know, prepare and have some threatening exercises out there and be ready to shoot their missiles down or whatever. Whether we have the capability to do that, I'm not sure. Well, the carry groups have been nearby. There have been Japanese fighters accompanying U.S. bombers. There's that anti-defense, anti-missile defense systems being set up in the center of northern Seoul. Golf course. A lot of things happen in the military side. You're absolutely right. China also, you know, really is hands-off of North Korea because North Korea is like, you say, a rogue state. But they have a lot of economic business ties with companies selling little parts. And I don't want refugees crossing the border. That's right. And parts and missile parts and little things flowing in. And China, especially Macau, is used to conduit for laundering money and some money made through drugs. So China is happy with the status quo. I don't think North Korea is threatening China. Notice other places but not China. Yeah, it's not. But I don't think China controls North Korea. That is something that people from the outside believe that they can choke North Korea through stopping exports into North Korea. Well, the economy is such a small economy and remember it's self-reliant. They make everything themselves, really. And there are imports of a high quality like pork or seafood for the military elite. But aside from that, the rest of the country really is on survival rations. Let me ask you this. I mean, so we have the big players. With the United States, we have China. We have Russia. Maybe you could say Japan is there. It's there, anyway. If those parties got together, that's my last question to you. If those parties got together and had some kind of consensus strategy in dealing with North Korea, would that work? And what would that strategy? What could it might it be if we can figure out what it might be? I think Japan would rather be part of a consensus, of course. Sure. China, everybody fears unilateral kinds of actions. Either it's an economic ban again or even arresting North Koreans outside, shutting down bank accounts. We can continue to do this. And everybody, of course, upholds the military action, of course. People talk about the surgical strike. And I think that's a... Nothing is surgical in North Korea. They'll have enough time to push the button. And many people will die. There are many units. What makes North Korea so difficult is that communications and so forth is a very low level when you think about it. It's not a sophisticated communication electronics network. From satellites, you take a photo of the Korean peninsula. Seoul and everything is lit up at night. Only Pyongyang has electricity in the night. So how can you get... Listen into communications when they're on it? Yeah. The whole thing is an on-camp and it's dedicated to staying in on-camp. But on the other hand, I think your notion of the multilateral consensus building has to develop. You know, a problem, though, Ray, and I'm just my last... Got to be my last question, so you're running out of time. The problem is that... And it goes back to Simon Winchester and the chapter in his Pacific book about how, in fact, we got to recognize the fact that the U.S. is declining. It's not only Trump. Just over time, we're declining as a world power. Against the emergence of other countries, which are becoming more economic and world powers. So if we thought, at a certain point in time, that we could lead those other countries into a consensus, into a joint strategy, dealing with Korea, that seems less likely now. It seems less likely because of the trend, the decline, you know, the geopolitical decline, but also because of Trump. He doesn't have the respect. Not only in Asia, but in Europe, but everywhere. He doesn't have the... What do you want to call it? The diplomatic respect. And so it's less likely now that we could lead that group into a consensus. The question, and a really interesting question, is whether they will do it ever without us. Is it in their collective interest to actually combine, actually make a multilateral effort to... Without the U.S.? Well, with the diminished capability of the U.S., I guess, you know, somebody leading without the U.S. at the top of the leadership, kind of, and ultimately work that out with North Korea, put the necessary pressure, whether it's, you know, the stick or the carrot, some kind of pressure on North Korea to bring them to the table and make a deal with them. Because right now, we seem like a long distance from that. Yes, and what's more complex, of course, is that relations between Japan and South Korea aren't that great. It's slightly better than before with the new president, the Korean president Moon. And he's trying to restore some relationship. So Japan, the leadership of Japan also, Abe is under great domestic political pressure. It's very hard for him to take leadership. Russia, I don't think Putin thinks of the Far East that much. He's focused on Crimea, the Belarus, Ukraine, and those areas. Not really concerned about the Far East. China is the one that's the most impacted. They see the carry groups and so forth. Just last week, there was a destroyer that went through the disputed shores again. So they see the Pacific Command and military always thinking to restrain, contain China. And that's what they're always angry and frustrated about. So they're not about to go out and do our bidding on this and not about to let us lead this consensus. So we have a kind of standoff there. It's a standoff between Korea and the others and between China and the U.S. Things will have to change. But then, you know, things do change. They always change. The only problem is when they change like this, you can't predict what they're going to do. So I guess at the end of our discussion, we come to the place where we started our discussion. If you ask me what the situation will be in six months, I don't know. I really don't know. Nobody knows. And but if they continue to fire missiles toward Japan and so forth, when does that draw some kind of response? I don't know. I don't know. And the Japanese are very fearful. They have drills there. They are just anxious that one of them will be a real one. And that will be aimed at one of their Western countries. If I were them, I'd be concerned. If I were in South Korea, I'd be very concerned. And I, as the U.S., too. So this is to be watched. It means you and I have to discuss this again going forward. And again, I have to say, though, people in the South have families that are relatives of the North. It's not an easy binary decision. It's a very family decision. So it's not like it's separate far-off country. It's their family members. It's a global decision. Thank you, Ray. Okay, thank you. Ray Tsuchiyama, informed citizen. This is Stink Tech Asia. I get that right.