>> next, look at the status of use north korea diplomacy after president trump canceled the sum and singapore that was scheduled to take place on june 12. 12th. from the stimson center in washington, d.c. this is about an hour.

>> i think we're going to get it started because this is going to be just an hour. welcome everyone. my name is yuki tatsumi. i'm the program director hat stimson center and we're delighted to have these were very interesting speakers to chat with us a little bit about what is beyond the trump kim summit. when i first give the title beyond trump kim summit, and please imagine the heart attack of me seeing that news that someone pulled -- showing of now seem to be back on. we are basically getting whiplash moment every day on this one with the sum is going to be on, off, on, off. so who knows what happens when

next week comes? in light of that uncertainty we are delighted to have yun sun and katsu furukawa. and jenny town from 38 n. which now now proud to say that a part of stimson center family. and my other codirector, my better half of the program, yun sun. what i'm going to do is i will first open the conversation with these four people but asking favorite brief question. i want this to be more of a dialogue rather than each of them giving timmons presentation each. i want the flow to get moving. let me start with you, frank, by asking, can you walk us through from your mind if the trump-kim summit happens in singapore, what is a good outcome, what is a bad outcome, and what is the

really ugly outcome? >> thank you for the question and thank you for the invitation to be here. i will answer your question. i will briefly set the scene by scene it's really important to understand how we got here. i think we got it because of three strategic changes on the peninsula. the first is present moon jae-in being elected, a progressive and south korea, and reaching out to north korea as a number agenda item for him as president. from may of last year until may of this year, it's been this top priority. and he is known and trusted by the north. the second big change is kim jong-un pickiest consolidated political power in north korea. yes ssn his half-brother. he's a limited rivals turkey is promoted his followers across every county in north korea in the korean workers part of it is elevated generals to senior ranks who he trusts. and is also consolidated a limited nuclear deterrent. he is feeling much more

confident today than it was even 12 months ago. and the third main strategic change is trump. and his maximum pressure campaign. he deserves some credit for change the dynamic of the potential but unless we understand those previous strategic factors, we are at risk of really ms. aniston what's driving this whole process. as a distinguished fellow at the mansfield foundation likes to say about the summit, he says there is a good bad outcome, there is a bad, bad outcome, and there's a catastrophic outcome. so the best we can hope for is what he calls the good bad outcome. the good bad outcome is that the two leaders sit down and agree to the basic principles, denuclearization and piece, hand-in-hand, in some kind of a phase reciprocal plan of action at the end goal will be clear. kim jong-un were promised denuclearization and president trump will promise piece.

piece. i think we'll get that outcome. i think we will get the good that outcome. why is it about outcome? none of the details of the nucleation are going to be agreed. not even necessarily a full definition of what denuclearization means because i'm for instance, south is nuclear power country. if we're going to denuclearize the green peninsula does that mean south korea has to give up nuclear power? i don't think so. does that mean north korea's and thompson nuclear power? if so, under what circumstances. the devil is in the detail here, and that's why there's a risk of a bad, bad outcome which would be essentially the summit breaking down and troll agreeing back to maximum pressure here and there is risk of a outcome, which is the summit breaks down quickly, trump leads in a half and launches printed notice fight against north korea a month later.

i think we should be aiming for the good bad outcome which will set in motion a process that hopefully won't break down before november of this year because it can't for political reasons, and set in motion a difficult negotiations that hopefully will bear fruit. >> thanks, frank. so looks like south korea maybe heavily pebbly impact on this and you are received at by the department coming out of the blue house. jenny from how does this whole development could or could not affect moon jae-in power or standing within korea, or not? >> obviously, well, first of all thanks to the stimson center for taking us in. we are the survivors. obviously south korea has a lot at stake and moon jae-in has invested a lot of personal capital into this process as well, as frank said. this is one of his top agenda items, one of the first things he wanted to do at some

excellent first thing to want to do even before he was elected. it was very much on a top priority. he's already had the inter-korean summit which for all intensive purposes was a success. they get all the commitments they needed to move the process forward. he's been very successful in dragging the u.s. along, getting trump involved in the process, getting the u.s. and dprk talking directly. but now the problem becomes that in this scheme of things as much as known ones to be in the driver seat in this process, north korea doesn't necessarily see south korea as an equal partner. now that the u.s. is involved and now that china is involved, it marginalizes south korea's influent in the process as well because a lot is really going to ride on had used dprk relations move forward, how chines dprk luce forward and moon gets caught in the middle. there's another fear, so if this

doesn't work out well there will be huge repercussions from moon jae-in for his personal reputational capital because he put so much into this, because he is so much money and so much research on this as well to the detriment of the domestic issues. you start to see this when president trump suddenly canceled the singapore summit. you did see the opposition party, they conservatives start to come out very quickly and very hard on moon jae-in, sort of accusing him of wasting the time and resources. you'll see more of this the heart of the process becomes and the more hard-line north korea gets stored south korea even on the endocrine agenda. it still doesn't solve the domestic issues which especially the younger generation is really going to be pushing for is in terms of jobs, in terms of all these political scandals have

been going on so far. at some point in this process the euphoria of the inter-korean summit will wear off. the novelty of kim and trump being good friends all of a sudden will wear off, and once you start to get into the details and start the negotiations on how to implement these commitments you are going to see a lot of criticism and 11 opposition along the way that is not going to be easy for this administration to shoulder. >> thanks, jenny. so yun, a lot of people are a lot of media reports suggest at least that's how it's been portrayed is that kim jong-un's rhetoric begins to shift after he met, he had a couple of meetings in beijing with xi jinping. how does china field this? on the happy the summit, the negotiation is back on track or where does beijing stand? >> i think at this point china wants to see the summit happen because it means the tension,

and offer some hope for denuclearization. although like frank pointed out there probably will not be details. but if the two leaders kim jong-un a president trump could in principle agree to denuclearization, the term with a specific definition, i think china will see that as a bad good outcome. not a good bad outcome but a bad good outcome. they are having speculations about what happened during kim jong-un's second visit to china which happened may 7 and may 8. and in north korea apparently change the attitude basically one week later. the speculation is what did the chinese tell them and what was put on the table that made the north koreans change her attitude? i think the chinese have different interpretation as to what happened, and it points out to the leader model is referred to -- libya model referred to by john boehner is a key reason for

the change of heart, the change by the north koreans. yeah, i will stop there. >> so finally, japan's seems to be the outlier in all this. there are lots of news reporting how japan feels marginalized, and now i think was in yesterdays voices of america that their prime minister abe may try to have face-to-face with president trump before the singapore summit, if it is indeed happening. katsu, where do you think japan stands on this? do they have more quiet and a visible role in all this? >> mr. abe was the only leader in the world who supported the summit, decision to cancel the summit last week. i'm sure it was a decision president trump may make in the future. mr. abe will support, but to be

honest i think there are not a small number of japanese people are experts who are concerned with president trump and understand the issue he was talking about. when mr. trump rejected idea of the libyan model in front of mr. john bolton, it appeared he was talking about bombing against libya rather than libya -- i'm not quite clear whether he has criticized him on what libya model is about. other sanction experts are concerned about the oversimplification of the concept of the libya model. libya had only been known to have acquired 22 centrifuge, and

the attempted to procure a huge number of parts and, spare parts, , but at the end of the y they only undid that by completing one small cascade which consisted of nine centrifuge only your weight it comes to this, we're talking about a country which appears to have procured at least thousands, likely over 10,000 centrifuges for their parts. so the scales is totally different, and this is only about centrifuge, heu, highly enriched uranium program. we have plutonium. we have a whole range of missiles, chemical weapons program, biological weapons. we have no credible information but they have the capabilities. so when we talk about libya model, that reward comes after

the so-called cvid. complete verifiable and irreversible disarmament. we were just talking about scale of nine months. the intensive part of the libyag disarmament process took only nine months from january through september of 2004. but in the case of north korea i'm not aware of any experts you are expecting to see their intensive part of disarmament to be completed in less than five years. the disarmament may take over five years. maybe president trump may not be there. i'm sure prime minister abe will not be there. so how do you sure mr. kim jong-un that we are going to reward you after all the summit process? i'm sure that my successors, by the way, u.s. congress in the future will offer, carry on this

commitment. i think it's a very big pill for mr. kim jong-un to swallow. one thing that people completely forget about is, i hear so many concerns about north koreas proposal step-by-step approach enabling north korea to engage in this salami slice cutting technique, and we should be concerned about that. i fully understand that, but there's a significant difference about the situation surrounding north korea today and ten years ago. today, north korea is wrapped literally by layers of sanction regimes, use sanction regimes, eu sanction regimes and other regimes. we have so many sanction regimes

surrounding north korea, but now currently we only discussion about whether we do nothing until the total disarmament is completed, or keep everything up after the total disarmament. despite this advantage which didn't exist ten years ago, we only basically talking about two different options which doesn't seem to be clear enough. if you are concerned about salami slice cutting negotiating technique by north korea, we can do the same, if we wish to when lifting sanctions. and also the issue is not only about lifting, neutralizing north korea existing wmd.

we also have to issue long-term monitoring to prevent north korea from renewing the wmd program. using the capabilities have already acquired and also nonproliferation. for south africa, it took 19 years, almost 20 years, for iea to satisfy that south korea is suddenly committed to nonproliferation. iraq, u.s. george bush administration ran to iraq. the group consisted of 1400 experts supported by military, and it took almost less than two years only to prove that there is no wmd exist in iraq. we have to be realistic about the scale we are talking about

when, about north korea deputy program and also long-term commitment that will be required to us if we are to lift all sanctions after required time. we might be expected to see revival of the recent play of iraq sanctions. we don't want to have, i mean, iraq, no, iran sanctions, iran nuclear deal. iran comply with the deal but trump administration is that happy with missile program and also other activities with iran, which were incorporating the previous u.n. sanction regimes. but discarded in the iran nuclear deal. we have to have more long-term

comprehensive perspective when we're talking about, ssb reich maddock, that's my story. >> that's a really good point and i think it is rare to hear all these complexity that there is a sanction regime that we just kind of categorically uses. in the time span, , looks like e only leader who is physically or technically being able to commit to such a long-term processes president xi jinping. .. that is long-term, is

step-by-step, talking about the lifting of it, various layers of sanctions as north korea does a, b, c, probably d-. the you think china is ready to support something comprehensive and long term like that? if it means that it will provides the ability which i think you would agree that it is china's adjudication >> yes, it is in china's interest and the question is the goal is coming to an out north korean nuclear issue. if china really wants these three goals, china should support reunification led by south korea because it will be stable, denuclearize then peaceful but i think the issue here is china it's not just a technical issue.

it's not just a political issue what it will look like and what are the political agreements associated with denuclearization? i find talks about the peace regime, peace treaty ortiz mechanism overshadow the role we are trying to play. payment in either a north korea south korea united states pre-party, or a magnetism that closes china and for china, the latter is not an option. any deal that will exclude china would not be welcome, or supported by beijing. the politics is at key here. >> in light of that and given the complexity of the long-term nature and comprehensiveness of the sanction and our president, south korean president has a lot shorter tenure in office so i guess for lack of a better word, you think both leaders when they talk about

the denuclearization of north korea, is it something that they are taking that they are heading into, something this complex taste this long of a time and even then at the end of the road, we could see what happened after what we saw in the framework, back then north korea's program was so much more limited in scale and we thought we got there in terms of dismantlement of the program or freeze of the program but only 10 years ago, 10 years later it popped back up and there's always that risk. so just let me get your point of progress, south korea also i think i would speak a little bit for the united states first because i think the biggest problem is when america thinks about these issues, they think of it in very simplistic terms of weekend by north korea off.

we don't want this to last very long, we don't want to put a lot of effort into it and we've narrowed north korea's choices down to a point where they have no other choice than to deal with that ifthey want to survive . andthis is completely the wrong approach . i think this always happens when we talk about korea a lot of times. we count it in pollock power politics and not actually, really discounting the actual strategic interests of the koreans themselves so when north korea is approaching this process, it isn't just about denuclearization . it's not just about sanctions, you can't just buy them off because again, they don't trust the us. they've seen the cycle. they seem deals fall apart as far back as the agreed

framework which was working that could have been renegotiated at a time when it could have made an impact. as recently as the iran deal , that is working and it's proven to be working if the us can still walk away. i think when north korea approaches this process, they are looking more or a fundamental change in the political relationship and that part of denuclearization, it's not just getting quick rewards. gary guarantees mean nothing on paper in an agreement until they had time to again, be laid out and to have a consistent pattern over time and to show that this is a fundamental relationship. in order to take those bigger steps of actually dealing with the core of their backup plan. so i think when south korea approachesthis , moon has five years. we don't know who the next president is going to be and we seen how drastically a policy can change from one

administration to the next. it would be very difficult also for north korea to believe that whatever happens in this administration last to the next administration as well unless moon works to work now at gaining back political buy-in from the opposition party in south korea which so far he's spent no time on and has tried to silence in the process . that looks like there is greater buy-in and what there is these are fundamental problems that will make denuclearization even more because north korea also knows the dynamics and will hedging that process. >> building an excellent marks by jenny, there's both a practical problem for the us and the political problem. the practical problem is that the best experts including group has released a fantastic report out of stanford estimating that between five and 15 years ,

he estimates 15 years necessary for denuclearization to be accomplished inside north korea. it's a realistic estimate and you don't take my word for it, to her knows more about denuclearization, he was director of the local recordings and hero report and knows more about the political scene at any other person onthe planet and it's a very carefully gone the study . they're saying 15 years for denuclearization. so the libya model is completely unrealistic. and for north korea the problem is kim jong-un's span in office, he hopes is 40 years. but he knows damn well that trunk has only got, i think no one's counting on three terms unless he amend the constitution but even he will be out of office in 11 more years so trunk isn't going to

see this through. he's going to be out of office after his third term. moon jae-in isn't going to see this through so the united states, we have to either embrace a declaratory policy that puts us on the path for denuclearization or reject it because of the timeline which is too long and yet is the only realistic timeline available to us. given that choice, i think president trump will make the pragmatic choice. he will accept a declaratory peace. i'm betting on the fact that he's not a policy walk. trunk thinks the wall is already built with mexico. if he comes back from singapore, he will announce the nuclear reservation has been accomplished. it won't matter the inspectors are on the ground yet and there's nobody in congress going to call him on it, with due respect to congress. they don't want the war with north korea, they want a

peace process and need to clear his asian process and if trunk gives them some incredible road forward, they're going to jump so that's the good news. that is all his difficulties of getting the job done are going to remain in frontof us . and thank goodness for the state because we got some really good experts like ambassador sung kim and mark lambert and marshall billingsly. some talented civil servants who will do some hard work and begin to unravel the sanctions, layer by layer off onion . that's the optimistic scenario. what is today? today istuesday, i'm supposed to be a pessimist on tuesday but i'm feeling more optimistic . >> so what's striking to me listening to the three of your comments is there's a practical aspect and also

each country has its own political mission. in south korea's case, how the opposition is going to react and how this will help or hurt president moon andhow it might affect the next demonstration . for the us, we don't really have to argue too muchbecause i think it's been outthere . but then even for china , what works for china politically and what works for the actual resolution of the problem technically may be a very different thing. so when it comes to japan, is that japan also has its own political problem when it comes to trying to play any role for what is bound to be a multinational scheme so how should, if you are a foreign policy or having a mister doctors john as an advisor to

prime minister abe, what would you advise to him? like our president and also the south korean president, mister abe, the clock is ticking already so what would your advice be to do? to make japan stay relevant? >> that for japan is like the hostage situation in iran. in the 1970s. it's a situation where you have action matters to really invoke complicated, complex national feelings. which is sll a sense of japan's policy today. but practically speaking, we have to have reasonably peaceful hydration of the

korean peninsula before we have an endgame in the year 2020. south korea today, it's exactly japan two years afterwards. and i see no way to have reasonable clear pathways for our issues other than having a diplomatic interaction improving overall relations with north korea. the cause the previous evidence, the cases of making some breakthroughs always forget about diplomacy or improvement. total solutions may take as long as 3080 but as jenny

stated, this is what we have to have. north korea, us or japan will have to build this task. they didn't exist until last week. maybe today as well. it takes time to build trust. let me just sites lessons learned from the libyan experience. ambassador joseph went to libya to abolish the front, ambassador joseph had several key lessons learned which included saving face of carnal copy and clearly preventing the future way. if colonel qaddafi appeared

to be forced into it, it would totally destroy his political base and endanger the libyan politics as awhole . so one of the key lessons learned from libya, look at what we are doing to north korea. the shouting between us presidents and north korean leaders and threatening the use of force against north korea. the moment political leaders make that statement, it shouldn't be called a moral because it's very different. trunk building walls, as france stated, for example in building trust we have to at some point start lifting sanctions. the problem is north korea use in most cases the commercial moral products.

so how can we effectively maintain a meaningful control to regulate the flow of commodities, but ensuring north korea's economic growth . this is going to be the challenge. >> very good point. if it's okay for everyone on the panel i would like toopen the floor for questions . so i would open up for questions. >> can you wait until the microphone? >> great discussion, really succinct which helps.

i love the way frank organized the speech. i myself am wondering at what point and is it the role of the us or is this a moon issue to say i can't do anything with you as long as you stay in armed unification of the peninsula is your objective? how can we give you a peace treaty if you want to give us one? is that something that needs to be frontloaded or is that something where you building more trust? the analogy is like, we get upset with how the iran thing has been handled but every time you get really upset, you're wondering whether israel is going to die tomorrow because they are all which everybody off at the knees interms of dealing with the iranians. the same with the north . and i too far ahead of things

on that or is that something that needs to be more clearly articulated up front? that gets us into the non-nuclear weapons and the artillery and the troops and all those things we say we're afraid trunk is going to ignore. >> who wants to tackle that first? >> i think the problem is that i think both sides have actually this commitment to peaceful, a peace regime and even talking about peaceful unification. they both are given that assurance. the problem is i don't think anyone believes it at this point . it's too early to have those assurances. we just had the declaration prior to that they were threatening so you can't change that political reality overnight. in the declaration i think that's the starting point to really start to work on these issues whether it's in a

bilateral, trilateral format. and i see as part of that process, this will have to be addressed but at this point, having them on paper is going to have much meaning. >> if you can hold your response. >> i want to add briefly, i was trained as a military analyst in the state department and capability is not one of their intentions here. the roll declaration provides assurances for north korea that they don't intend a war with south korea but what matters is the capabilities and we're not going to see any attenuation of the capabilities in the north or the south. for quite some time. but the good news there is the south doesn't have the conventional military capabilities to affect occasion on their terms. and the other goodnews is the south koreans how strong us ally at their back .

i'm not so worried about the north korean having to disarm as a prerequisite for peacemaking. i think it's an unrealistic expectation. there will need to be some kind of peace declaration, peace regime established early in the process. not only did the chinese government find the pharmacist agreement but you can't practically and the korean war without china's will so eventually the chinese are going to have to find on the dotted line and they're going to be crucial i think in providing security assurances to keep north korea the confidence to proceed down a peace process with the south.but i think we should worry about the north revising their documents to forear the forceful unification of the south. as a practical matter already off the table>> , had that question right here. >> and the chairman, thank

you to the panel. i wanted to follow up on these comments as the sanctions experts . ask about your impression of the maximum pressure campaign and what part of that was in the security council resolution. it seems like maximum pressure is off. the second that we had the inter-korean summit , the political momentum goes away easily flowed for implementing those sanctions. and now as a result of this episode, north korea's relations with china are much better though they're not in the mood for pushing those sanctions further. first of all, do you think that the international tensions in addition to the us sanctions were being effective. did they have any kind of time to set in and also, can you reinvigorate that aspect of the maximum pressure campaign if somebody doesn't produce. >>.

>> in my assessment, these sanctions have an effect in encouraging north korea. the excessive dialogue, but i don't think japan plays a decisive role. because when people talk about the effectiveness of sanctions, i think they're too late, two different for judgment. theoretically, north korea was prohibited from 90 percent as a result of this series of us and un sanctions. but having said that, several

japanese journalists are experts have been monitoring price levels of north korea, from gasoline, rice or other key commodities. and this despite some sporadic spikes up and down in key commodities, overall for the one year, previousone year it's stable. i don't know why but it is stable . and for foreign currency, it generates the chinese yuan and here it's stable. so i just can't find 25 quantify evidence to show that critical impact brought by sanctions on north korean economy as yet. >> i think the current heavily reliant on china to

influence sanctions. previously, we focused on influencing sanctions against north korea. the sanction is about the target sanctions. finding people and give them service related to governing that north korea was crossed off, much more than international community so many countries are, we want to start enough to influence sanctions. it's just a reality so differently, let'simagine a huge fight with which , lots of economies put china through, the pipe has many loopholes and from there many funds diapered intoprograms. there are so many loopholes .

because china is currently pursuing the entire flow, so that an amount of water leaks fromthe pie , appears to be small. so once this all the flow returns to the previous volume, again, we won't have the same problem. north korea has been the agent connecting to the illegal procurementactivities . they have to vent around the wall, korean nationals living in luxurious apartments, they are still there. i don't know why. north korean agents possessing cambodian passports and traveling around the world and no governments of these people

can act effectively so regardless of the dialogue, the international committee as little as enforcing infection sanctions. so this relates to the future of the nonproliferation regime. it's not only north korea but how do we control the risk of divergence on many commercial commodities or technologies or governing? >> no country in the world has been good at, i see no good examples of discharge and this is going to be the issue. >> ..

>> do we need something from a compass which would guarantee basically the continuance in the post trump era? >> given the human rights situation in north korea would the congress agree? >> wow, david. i mean, i served for 15 years on the step of the senate foreign relations committee and i worked closely with senator brownback on that committee to updraft north korean human rights act. and amnesty international i worked to try to shine a spotlight on north korea's grotesque human rights abuses. it's an issue i care deeply about personally. i think this may be one of those only nixon can go to china moments with respect to trump and a north korea deal.

i think frankly it would be inconceivable to me that republican-controlled congress would approve any deal that obama could have negotiated with north korea, for precisely the human rights issues and other issues that you have raised. but i think with president trump in control of the white house and with republicans control of the house and the senate that they will set aside those concerns. if president trump asks them to. as a democrat i can either choose to whine about the unfairness of that, or as an american i can choose to celebrate the fact that the united states and north korea might be able to put themselves on the path toward piece which is the only path that can eventually to improvements in north korea human rights situation to begin with. think we need to keep our eyes on the ultimate objective. there's nothing about north korean human rights that is going to improve in a situation which it is in a bellicose

adversarial relationship with south korea and the united states. that i can assure you. i can't predict what this congress will do but i would hope that they would see that these are not mutually exclusive outcomes, that i peace and denuclearization agreement is arguably the best way to try to make progress on human rights in north korea. i've been told that my north korean officials themselves including some who said kissinger didn't go to beijing and lecture chairman mao about the cultural revolution. he made a strategic opening and you all address the human rights issues later. frankly i can wish kissinger had mentioned the fact who are 30 million chinese imprisoned in camps at the time that he visited, but he didn't. i think trump will probably finesse this issue with the congress. >> just to quickly add to that, i can't imagine that the north koreans would even ask for that,

for a congressional mandate. realistically that is built into a deal itself and that's why having a short-term deal, , a vy short deal is unrealistic because they are going to want to build in those assurances over time. the last past administration to test the theory to begin with, it's not just about congress but the administration is well because again as we've seen with president trump pulling out of the arena deal, it's not congressional decision. that's executive decision. that isn't necessarily who the north koreans would target in this kind of deal. it's really going to be what other terms of the deal and what are the details. >> kevin. >> it seems to me the dynamic has changed but the fundamental question that we in the international community had asked her cells has not changed. and the question is do we tolerate north korea's nuclear

power or not? my feeling it should be or not. it's too dangerous given the history of proliferation for one thing and the threats they continue to make. the dynamic has changed and we've seen this before where we are going to talks, not talks, how do we define things. we tend in 30 years in the state department i saw this many times, we start focusing on how do we continue the dialogue rather than our strategic objective, which you to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction programs. my question for the panel is, as a whole do you really believe that kim jong-un woke up one day, slapped his head and say now i get it. i've got to get rid of this my future? queasy just biding time as we've seen before many times. my commission specifically for frank, you said the good outcome is we don't define covfefe we don't have cvid in place. >> at the summit. but it usually buying time is at

a good outcome? i don't think so. use of the bad outcome is we go to the meeting and trump says no deal because you guys don't agree to concrete action before we remove sanctions we go back to maximum pressure. if he's really buying time is that a bad outcome? one last quick comment about japan. this notion that japan is marginalized, people overlooking things that's going on. japan played a key role in getting the sanctions in place including sanctions towards china, pressure on china to go along. when we really were doing maximum military pressure, japan was pulling a much bigger role than most people realize because they cannot because they can do like to self-defense, and like escorting b-52 bombers, escorting b-1 bombers. unthinkable a few cues ago but north koreans, the chinese know this. they see this. getting cruise missiles, things like that. that's my question.

>> very briefly. a great question. can we tolerate them or not we been tolerating north korea as a nuclear weapon state for 12 years to clear the and is a yes, we can tolerate them. i respect the question you asked but i think there's another question, which is we have dialogue or else what. what's the alternative? the sanctions regime in the maximum pressure sanctions regime has not led to a fuel price spike, has not led to a shut them up north korean economy. the economy is growing in the face of the sanctions. so unfortunately the or else what question to me drives my support for a flawed, imperfect engagement process that will without question alone north korea to sustain some level of wmd activity for years. i think you are right in your

bleak assessment of where north korea is headed. i don't expect that trump will be able to negotiate give as good as the iran deal. the iran deal by reference, the iranians give gave up 95% of te highly enriched uranium upfront. now, does you and with industry donald trump will negotiate a deal that could with north korea? i doubt it. if he does i will eat my shoe but i doubt it very much. i wish we had a better outcome, kevin, why they don't see a good choice. we are choosing among bad choices. >> two things on kevin's question. the second part -- >> wait until the -- >> i'm sorry. there's a second part to kevin's first question, did kim wake up one morning, spencer kim has put in the post and is put -- saying

that's that what he woke up one morning he woke up one morning thinking i can trade my nukes for the economic assistance in the peace treaty of one. that's how people think they know the mind of north great respect not that he woke up one morning and said it's too dangerous for me. if i can use my new test collateral to get the economic stuff out of one. jenny is shaking her head and i think she's right but spencer, that crowd, they're telling me, this guys different. he's going going to make that deal. where are we? >> jill biden taught me if i did know the answer to a question i should say i don't know, i don't know. >> i will let you go and then i will get to you. go ahead. i think the problem here, what is the nature of the dialogue, are we talking or will it be, can we tolerate that are not? the question is really has the u.s. really try to address the

core issues to get north korea to be in a space where they felt like they could give up the nuclear weapons? that's really never happened. we keep going back to this we can buy them off, we can buy them off, we can buy them off, assuming they don't have, assuming that they don't have larger strategic interest in this. i think that's always been the problem when you approach the deal, we don't have the patience to get the 90% up front because that took 12 years to negotiate. we want this to be quick. we don't want to spend a lot of time on it. we don't really care what they think so we project on them what we think they want in this process, that we know they are for, we know they have limited access to resources. we assume a lot of things about them and there's probably some truth to it, but in the meantime a north koreans over and over talk about the core issues its not just a given paper. it's a security guarantee think you will not attack us, but it's a broader political

relationship. they want the legitimacy. they want the assurances. they want the sort of normal relations, and the question is are we willing to give them that in order for them to denuclearize? i think that's always been a tension between these argument is that we are not willing to go there, and, but those are their core strategic interest. >> before going back, i know you have second, two thinkers, but we have about a minute or two left in this session. let me get to our last question and then i would go back to our panelists for their final last words, or two or three. >> independent consultant and recent refugee from the state department. quick question. so my big concern with all this is about the trump administration and president trump itself will lose interest in these negotiations if they

are not big, big achievements between now and the midterm elections. if that happens, who is going to continue with this process once the president has let the genie out of the bottle and met with kim jong-un, which is an historic thing for any u.s. president to do? that's one thing. the second thing that keeps me up at night is i don't think the u.s. and china show the same perspective on what the elements of denuclearization of north korea actually entail. i don't think that they have the same understanding of what the elements of a peaceful nuclear program in north korea would be. how do we arrive at that kind of understanding with the chinese? >> i will say that in the unlikely event that president trump removes himself completely from the dprk issue after the summit, we should count

ourselves blessed. >> yun? per second question was about the u.s. and china having different goals when it comes to negotiations. >> two quick points. i think you're right u.s. and china do not show the definition with the same perspective, even the future of the korean peninsula in particular. when the chinese made references about denuclearization on the korean peninsula it's not denuclearization of north korea present their technical differences as to what that constitute. essentially the chinese question is what is essentially going to happen to the u.s.-south korea military alliance? is that still the place if north korea is in the peace treaty with the united states does though legality of the alliance still stand? that's one issue. the other issue is we hear a lot of this linkage that china is making, the lake is between a broader u.s.-china relations and the linkage of what china's

position north korea really is. i do see that on both sides because remember a year ago president trump's position was that if china cooperates with us on south korea, the trade deal, they would get much better. guess what one year later it's not that much better. so for the chinese they feel there's a strong sense of grievance unappreciative that china did deliver on north korea but the trade deal is as bad as was mentioned. i think there's a transactional issue here that both sides are avoiding to talk about that isn't there. >> let go back to jenny and then katsu for whatever thoughts they want to share, the things you left unsaid that you are dying to say today. >> i think i said a lot. i think we are in a space now what i think a lot of the media is focused on will he or won't he in terms of the summit

itself, and i think the big question should be are we really close to having this understanding on this substance rather than just on the pomp and circumstance. that's where i think moon jae-in as much as he has been instrumental in starting this process, i think now is by trying to encourage the process too much has put too much pressure on it and a sort of back us into a corner. and is almost now by saying all these messages and back from kim jong-un and raising the expectations and i cozying up to trump and playing tuesday go i think is actually undermining the process and making it more difficult. i think we really need to camp down the expectations of what if we have summit it's going to accomplish and that if we have it we have because we do have the framework of a deal and the outlines of a deal, not just have it because it is going to be historic.

>> i just want to revise my flip answer. look, to get at is this summit has happened bottoms to tops. that is to say top to bottom. it is doubtful to backwards of a normal summit. you are going to have the top leaders meet. normally you would affect her for preparation all the way up to the top. what needs to happen after the summit never trumper to get get out of the way and to have it fill to back down so that all the details can be worked out not by trump but by people who are competent to do the job. with respect to where we are headed, i would hope the administration would therefore have the patience necessary to see through the tough work that's going to be had. and i agree very much with what jenny said. the united states in this situation, we have an opportunity with the most senior person to come to d.c. sense marshall 18 years ago.

that clinton agreement remains to this day, the preferred north korean state of relations between the u.s. and north korea, i would urge people to go back and read it but the clinton joint statement lays out the totality of what north korea is trying to accomplish this round. and i hope that the visit will lead to something comparable to the joint statement. it will not issue a joint statement but that's what we should be aiming for. >> katsu, since you travel all the way from japan just for this i will give you the last word. >> thank you very much. two points. north korea was not supposed to be most important security challenge, particularly from japan's perspective.

significant, most significant security challenge relies with china because china is trying to rewrite international role. the reason we are not supposed to spend so many resources for north korea as north koreas nuclear and ballistic missile capable increase, the cost that japan has to invest in upgrading missile-defense system, vis-à-vis north korea, is expanding increasingly which is sucking up resources to do with the expansion of the chinese military activities. we have to find a reasonable way to maintain this north korea's governing programs before our focus on china, if not neglected. we need space to cope with

china. but in this regard i am always concerned about u.s. government because, to me it is estimated u.s. government is always, always in line with iran more than north korea. in 2015 when we saw when i was in the dprk panel, myself and my colleagues are really happy because, because of the iran nuclear deal. now obama administration will focus on north korea, finally. now again you guys are opening up his iran nuclear deal. [laughing] you know, the operational reality on the ground of enforcing sanctions, you know, the resource allocated for iran and allocated for north korea, a trade-off relationship. so i hope u.s. government will continue to pay attention to north korea so it's not going to

be much bigger problem in the near future. >> thank you, katsu. you all notice the u.s. gis banner to everybody whenever the banner is up, anybody so used to seeing. they want to change things up a little bit. actually they run the crisis simulation three times you. they picked up the north korea scenario and it was very interesting to see, listening to all these paddles. all the scenario played out and obviously it's house rules whaty can i get into the details but katsu also played a critical role in shaping that whole flow of the game and it was just fascinating that all these great questions that were raised come all the poinsettia been made by the panelists, they all came upp and when she performed. it's very interesting even if everybody who plays the game is japanese, the minute you assigned them to the team, within five minutes they assume the personality of the country that they are assigned to.

it's a fascinating thing to see. but then i would also like cig is in the absence of katsu share his thoughts we thought he would set best person to do so because of north korea, and like i said during the session we often don't get these technical difficulties. we don't think frankly give enough appreciation to that. so thank you for traveling all the way. and you to all our remaining 330 talented panelists. this is i think the best panel i've had on this. i really enjoyed the conversation. i hope you all did, too. especially now that 38 north is part of our stimpson family, you can almost come we can almost guarantee that we're going to see more. so thank you all for coming, and the session is adjourned. thank you, everyone. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up this afternoon we look at the implications of refugee migration and mitch romney takes the stage with utah state representative mike kennedy in a senate primary debate.