hello well I’m gonna be talking today
about perhaps the greatest security
challenge facing the United States today
the ongoing confrontation with North
Korea over its nuclear and ballistic
missile program in doing so I’m gonna
introduce a historical sensibility and
I’m gonna encourage you to rethink the
things that are really fundamentally
understood by by most people who work on
on Korea policy and that is that China
wields enormous influence political
influence over North Korea and that
North Korea has made in recent years
major advances in their nuclear and
ballistic missile technology to the
point where very soon
they may be able to deliver to the
United States to the continental United
States a nuclear-tipped ICBM or into an
intercontinental ballistic missile now I
don’t believe that they will they’re not
suicidal but perhaps that’s a subject
for another TED talk rather but we need
to understand that because the United
States does not deal well with
uncertainty we need to take steps that
will prevent North Korea from
demonstrating the the ability to do this
do do something that’s only to other
countries that are not allied with the
United States Russia and China presently
have the ability to do and that is again
we deliver a nuclear warhead to the
during the presidential election nearly
every candidate from both party made
statements suggesting that China could
and should bringing in North Korea or
make North Korea behave
since being since his election President
Trump has suggested that China has the
ability do to rein in North Korea with
just the flip of a switch these
overestimate young Liana’s docility
board china and and in many ways they
they reveal a fundamental
misunderstanding of the relationship
between China and North Korea but this
kind of thinking is not new in fact this
kind of thinking has been around in in
u.s. foreign policy for at least four
decades back during the Carter
Administration folks in the national
security team and to the understanding
that really there was there was no
intrinsic value that was a quote no
intrinsic value dealing directly with
the North Korean what could we trade
with M F so instead they they proposed
they concluded that we could rely on
China
we were just normalizing relations with
China at this time do deal with the
North Korean we just had no interest in
in talking with them for decades later
this has remained essentially the
default US policy toward North Korea
over the years that I have been studying
Korea I’ve asked many people in the
foreign policy community in Washington
why they think China and North Korea are
so close or why they believe China and
North Korea are so close why do they
believe that China has the ability to
exercise political influence over North
and the answer that that I get most
often
is that well the Chinese helped North
Korea from in during the Korean War 65
years ago they prevented North Korea
from being wiped off the face of the
earth to be sure the official propaganda
of both China and North Korea suggests
that the alliance is strong
they both say for example that the
alliance is quote forged in blood
unquote or it is quote as close as lips
and teeth and claw this latter statement
suggesting or implying a intimacy that
is really unusual in international
relation but a lot has happened in the
the 65 years since the Korean War and we
now know from the diplomatic documents
of North Korea’s former communist allies
these materials that I spent a decade
obtaining that there is a profound sense
of mistrust at the basis of the
relationship between China and North
Korea diplomatic cables produced in
Pyongyang records of conversations
between North Korean officials and other
communist leaders describe how the North
Koreans have long perceived Chinese
actions for North Korea to be overly
intervention it less than respectful of
Korean sovereignty and at times a
betrayal of communist principles
tensions between North Korea and China
go back Becky in fact we can trace them
back to the Korean War remember this is
that the the instance where most policy
people working on Korea suggest that the
relationship became closed we have
evidence that shows that the North
Koreans were extremely troubled by the
fact that you had
foreign military apparatus coming in and
taking over control of field operation
when the Chinese people’s volunteers
entered the Korean War in the late fall
of 1950 there were serious disagreements
between Chinese and North Korean
generals over guilty’ tensions remain
long after the Korean War armistice in
1953 in 1956 Chinese China’s top leaders
directly interfered in a domestic
political dispute to North Korea not
only that they also supported and indeed
provided asylum to critics of North
Korea’s founding leader Kim il-sung
decades later the North Koreans would
continue to talk about they clearly
perceived this as a violation of North
Korean political sovereignty perhaps the
greatest stumbling block for the
relationship however was in the 1960
doing the Chinese great proletarian
Cultural Revolution during this time
Chinese Red Guards openly denounced amil
sung and called for his removal called
for him to be overthrown – troops
entered North Korean territory in a cube
town occupied down there were clashes
between the North Korean and Chinese
military on their border in the vicinity
of Peck – mountain the North Koreans
never got over them the relationship was
never recovered
and again decades later the North
Koreans continued as we can see from
materials we have available to us
continued with you the Chinese
leadership with sufficient in the
mid-1970s as China grew closer to the
United States and began to integrate
into the global economy the North
Koreans looked at the Chinese and
thought that they were betraying the
revolutionary principles and by adopting
capitalist practices we’re betraying the
North Koreans as well
in 1989 EES newspapers openly criticized
the North Koreans or choosing Kim
jong-il the son of founder Kim il-sung
as the successor now it had been the
prerogative of the Chinese emperor to
confer legitimacy on a Korean monarch up
through the late 19th century but for
the Koreans the understanding that China
felt it could express an opinion on who
would be the leader in 1980 was
unconscionable again they clearly
perceive this as a violation of their
sovereignty
perhaps the greatest betrayal however
came in 1992 when China normalized
relations with with the Republic of
Korea South Korea because of these
episodes there exists today a profound
sense of mistrust in the relationship
between China and North Korea and this
profound sense of mistrust reduces
China’s ability to exercise at will
political influence over North Korea in
fact if we ask China like the u.s. has
been doing to exercise political
influence we are asking them to do
precisely what North Korea has boast
resented over the past nearly seven
decades
this is only going to backfire it’s only
going to antagonize North Korea more and
exacerbate the situation on the Korean
Peninsula that’s dead it is true that
China today has enormous material
leverage over North Korea some 90
percent of North Korea’s foreign trade
is with Beijing also provides crucial
aid to the North Korean regime but there
are limits the effectiveness of material
leverage in changing the policies of aid
recipient country
only needs to think of the United States
relationship with South Korea in the
1950
despite being utterly dependent on the
US for economic and security assistance
South Korean president Syngman Rhee was
able to openly flout US pressure he
understood that ultimately the United
States needed him as a security ally in
the region and the u.s. understood that
it couldn’t push him too far it couldn’t
risk destabilizing the vulnerable South
Korean regime at the time man is in the
same boat today despite having material
leverage over North Korea it is not
willing or able to use that to push
North Korea to abandon its nuclear
program today why well it’s not in
China’s entry it’s too risky
now some argue that if you do push North
Korea too far as the United States wants
it to then it’s going to lead to stayed
in spy it’ll collapsed north in the
United States is pushing is urging North
or urging China to bring North Korea to
its knee and it’s using economic
sanctions and and other pressures to to
force meet North Korean leadership to
understand that the cost of maintaining
a nuclear and ballistic missile program
is just do great again it’s it’s urging
China to use whatever material leverage
it has to bring North Korea to its knees
to abandon that but the Chinese
leadership is concerned that it will
lead to instability that could
potentially lead to state and spidel
collapse in North Korea China doesn’t
want this for a couple of reasons
some speculate that that it’s because
they fear the possibility of a flow a
sudden flow of refugees across the
border it’ll put a whole lot of
of faith on that I don’t think that’s
the main reason ultimately the Chinese
government the Chinese economy could
absorb a flow of refugees from China
they’re from North Korea though there is
perhaps a a related consequence and and
that is the potential for Korean
irredentism there is a large population
of ethnic Koreans living in North East
China and as even Mao Zedong recognized
North East China was at one point part
of Korean territory but I think the
major reason that the Chinese leadership
today is afraid or doesn’t want state
collapse in North Korea is because it
would mean national reunification on the
Korean Peninsula under a seoul-based
regime and as much as China does not
want a nuclear North Korea even more
than that they don’t want a unified
Korean state that is a treaty ally of
the United States at their doorstep
especially as China is trying to
reassert a traditional regional hegemony
I need to establish a zone of deference
all right the clickers not cooperating
here we go um so there are clear limits
to what China can and is willing to do
because it’s not in their interest do to
comply with us wishes and and bring
North Korea to its but what can we what
can we do what can be done ultimately I
think the United States gonna have to
sit down and talk with North Korea this
will be uncomfortable
it will be very very challenging but the
United States is is a justification or
the the existential threat posed by the
United States is the justification that
North Korea uses for their program so
we’ll need to sit down talk with them
try that’s the however possible to
overcome mistrust on both sides because
if we don’t if we continue to try to
outsource this program or this problem
rather to China we are essentially
acquiescing the North Korea continuing
to develop their ballistic and nuclear
missile and nuclear technology thank you [Applause]
about perhaps the greatest security
challenge facing the United States today
the ongoing confrontation with North
Korea over its nuclear and ballistic
missile program in doing so I’m gonna
introduce a historical sensibility and
I’m gonna encourage you to rethink the
things that are really fundamentally
understood by by most people who work on
on Korea policy and that is that China
wields enormous influence political
influence over North Korea and that
North Korea has made in recent years
major advances in their nuclear and
ballistic missile technology to the
point where very soon
they may be able to deliver to the
United States to the continental United
States a nuclear-tipped ICBM or into an
intercontinental ballistic missile now I
don’t believe that they will they’re not
suicidal but perhaps that’s a subject
for another TED talk rather but we need
to understand that because the United
States does not deal well with
uncertainty we need to take steps that
will prevent North Korea from
demonstrating the the ability to do this
do do something that’s only to other
countries that are not allied with the
United States Russia and China presently
have the ability to do and that is again
we deliver a nuclear warhead to the
during the presidential election nearly
every candidate from both party made
statements suggesting that China could
and should bringing in North Korea or
make North Korea behave
since being since his election President
Trump has suggested that China has the
ability do to rein in North Korea with
just the flip of a switch these
overestimate young Liana’s docility
board china and and in many ways they
they reveal a fundamental
misunderstanding of the relationship
between China and North Korea but this
kind of thinking is not new in fact this
kind of thinking has been around in in
u.s. foreign policy for at least four
decades back during the Carter
Administration folks in the national
security team and to the understanding
that really there was there was no
intrinsic value that was a quote no
intrinsic value dealing directly with
the North Korean what could we trade
with M F so instead they they proposed
they concluded that we could rely on
China
we were just normalizing relations with
China at this time do deal with the
North Korean we just had no interest in
in talking with them for decades later
this has remained essentially the
default US policy toward North Korea
over the years that I have been studying
Korea I’ve asked many people in the
foreign policy community in Washington
why they think China and North Korea are
so close or why they believe China and
North Korea are so close why do they
believe that China has the ability to
exercise political influence over North
and the answer that that I get most
often
is that well the Chinese helped North
Korea from in during the Korean War 65
years ago they prevented North Korea
from being wiped off the face of the
earth to be sure the official propaganda
of both China and North Korea suggests
that the alliance is strong
they both say for example that the
alliance is quote forged in blood
unquote or it is quote as close as lips
and teeth and claw this latter statement
suggesting or implying a intimacy that
is really unusual in international
relation but a lot has happened in the
the 65 years since the Korean War and we
now know from the diplomatic documents
of North Korea’s former communist allies
these materials that I spent a decade
obtaining that there is a profound sense
of mistrust at the basis of the
relationship between China and North
Korea diplomatic cables produced in
Pyongyang records of conversations
between North Korean officials and other
communist leaders describe how the North
Koreans have long perceived Chinese
actions for North Korea to be overly
intervention it less than respectful of
Korean sovereignty and at times a
betrayal of communist principles
tensions between North Korea and China
go back Becky in fact we can trace them
back to the Korean War remember this is
that the the instance where most policy
people working on Korea suggest that the
relationship became closed we have
evidence that shows that the North
Koreans were extremely troubled by the
fact that you had
foreign military apparatus coming in and
taking over control of field operation
when the Chinese people’s volunteers
entered the Korean War in the late fall
of 1950 there were serious disagreements
between Chinese and North Korean
generals over guilty’ tensions remain
long after the Korean War armistice in
1953 in 1956 Chinese China’s top leaders
directly interfered in a domestic
political dispute to North Korea not
only that they also supported and indeed
provided asylum to critics of North
Korea’s founding leader Kim il-sung
decades later the North Koreans would
continue to talk about they clearly
perceived this as a violation of North
Korean political sovereignty perhaps the
greatest stumbling block for the
relationship however was in the 1960
doing the Chinese great proletarian
Cultural Revolution during this time
Chinese Red Guards openly denounced amil
sung and called for his removal called
for him to be overthrown – troops
entered North Korean territory in a cube
town occupied down there were clashes
between the North Korean and Chinese
military on their border in the vicinity
of Peck – mountain the North Koreans
never got over them the relationship was
never recovered
and again decades later the North
Koreans continued as we can see from
materials we have available to us
continued with you the Chinese
leadership with sufficient in the
mid-1970s as China grew closer to the
United States and began to integrate
into the global economy the North
Koreans looked at the Chinese and
thought that they were betraying the
revolutionary principles and by adopting
capitalist practices we’re betraying the
North Koreans as well
in 1989 EES newspapers openly criticized
the North Koreans or choosing Kim
jong-il the son of founder Kim il-sung
as the successor now it had been the
prerogative of the Chinese emperor to
confer legitimacy on a Korean monarch up
through the late 19th century but for
the Koreans the understanding that China
felt it could express an opinion on who
would be the leader in 1980 was
unconscionable again they clearly
perceive this as a violation of their
sovereignty
perhaps the greatest betrayal however
came in 1992 when China normalized
relations with with the Republic of
Korea South Korea because of these
episodes there exists today a profound
sense of mistrust in the relationship
between China and North Korea and this
profound sense of mistrust reduces
China’s ability to exercise at will
political influence over North Korea in
fact if we ask China like the u.s. has
been doing to exercise political
influence we are asking them to do
precisely what North Korea has boast
resented over the past nearly seven
decades
this is only going to backfire it’s only
going to antagonize North Korea more and
exacerbate the situation on the Korean
Peninsula that’s dead it is true that
China today has enormous material
leverage over North Korea some 90
percent of North Korea’s foreign trade
is with Beijing also provides crucial
aid to the North Korean regime but there
are limits the effectiveness of material
leverage in changing the policies of aid
recipient country
only needs to think of the United States
relationship with South Korea in the
1950
despite being utterly dependent on the
US for economic and security assistance
South Korean president Syngman Rhee was
able to openly flout US pressure he
understood that ultimately the United
States needed him as a security ally in
the region and the u.s. understood that
it couldn’t push him too far it couldn’t
risk destabilizing the vulnerable South
Korean regime at the time man is in the
same boat today despite having material
leverage over North Korea it is not
willing or able to use that to push
North Korea to abandon its nuclear
program today why well it’s not in
China’s entry it’s too risky
now some argue that if you do push North
Korea too far as the United States wants
it to then it’s going to lead to stayed
in spy it’ll collapsed north in the
United States is pushing is urging North
or urging China to bring North Korea to
its knee and it’s using economic
sanctions and and other pressures to to
force meet North Korean leadership to
understand that the cost of maintaining
a nuclear and ballistic missile program
is just do great again it’s it’s urging
China to use whatever material leverage
it has to bring North Korea to its knees
to abandon that but the Chinese
leadership is concerned that it will
lead to instability that could
potentially lead to state and spidel
collapse in North Korea China doesn’t
want this for a couple of reasons
some speculate that that it’s because
they fear the possibility of a flow a
sudden flow of refugees across the
border it’ll put a whole lot of
of faith on that I don’t think that’s
the main reason ultimately the Chinese
government the Chinese economy could
absorb a flow of refugees from China
they’re from North Korea though there is
perhaps a a related consequence and and
that is the potential for Korean
irredentism there is a large population
of ethnic Koreans living in North East
China and as even Mao Zedong recognized
North East China was at one point part
of Korean territory but I think the
major reason that the Chinese leadership
today is afraid or doesn’t want state
collapse in North Korea is because it
would mean national reunification on the
Korean Peninsula under a seoul-based
regime and as much as China does not
want a nuclear North Korea even more
than that they don’t want a unified
Korean state that is a treaty ally of
the United States at their doorstep
especially as China is trying to
reassert a traditional regional hegemony
I need to establish a zone of deference
all right the clickers not cooperating
here we go um so there are clear limits
to what China can and is willing to do
because it’s not in their interest do to
comply with us wishes and and bring
North Korea to its but what can we what
can we do what can be done ultimately I
think the United States gonna have to
sit down and talk with North Korea this
will be uncomfortable
it will be very very challenging but the
United States is is a justification or
the the existential threat posed by the
United States is the justification that
North Korea uses for their program so
we’ll need to sit down talk with them
try that’s the however possible to
overcome mistrust on both sides because
if we don’t if we continue to try to
outsource this program or this problem
rather to China we are essentially
acquiescing the North Korea continuing
to develop their ballistic and nuclear
missile and nuclear technology thank you [Applause]
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