[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR AND MISSILE TESTS
AND THE SIX-PARTY TALKS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA, THE PACIFIC AND
THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
AND THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 17, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-40
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
Samoa DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RON PAUL, Texas
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
DIANE E. WATSON, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri JOE WILSON, South Carolina
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York CONNIE MACK, Florida
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
GENE GREEN, Texas MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
LYNN WOOLSEY, California TED POE, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
BARBARA LEE, California GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
JIM COSTA, California
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RON KLEIN, Florida
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
DIANE E. WATSON, California BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
Lisa Williams, Subcommittee Staff Director
Daniel Bob, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
Nien Su, Republican Professional Staff Member
Vili Lei, Staff Associate
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade
BRAD SHERMAN, California, Chairman
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia TED POE, Texas
DIANE E. WATSON, California DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
RON KLEIN, Florida
Don MacDonald, Subcommittee Staff Director
John Brodtke, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
Tom Sheehy, Republican Professional Staff Member
Isidro Mariscal, Subcommittee Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Selig S. Harrison, Director of the Asia Program, The Center
for International Policy....................................... 15
The Honorable Thomas C. Hubbard, Senior Director, McLarty
Associates (former Ambassador to the Republics of Korea, the
Philippines and Palau)......................................... 21
Mr. Scott Snyder, Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, Senior
Associate, International Relations, The Asia Foundation........ 27
Mr. Richard C. Bush III, Director, Center for Northeast Asian
Policy Studies, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution (former
National Intelligence Officer for East Asia)................... 36
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress
from American Samoa, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia, the
Pacific and the Global Environment: Prepared statement......... 4
The Honorable Donald A. Manzullo, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Illinois: Prepared statement................. 13
Mr. Selig S. Harrison: Prepared statement........................ 18
The Honorable Thomas C. Hubbard: Prepared statement.............. 25
Mr. Scott Snyder: Prepared statement............................. 29
Mr. Richard C. Bush III: Prepared statement...................... 38
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 72
Hearing minutes.................................................. 74
The Honorable Diane E. Watson, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California: Prepared statement.................... 75
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Texas: Prepared statement.................... 78
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Virginia: Prepared statement................. 81
The Honorable Michael E. McMahon, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New York: Prepared statement................. 83
NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR AND MISSILE TESTS AND THE SIX-PARTY TALKS: WHERE
DO WE GO FROM HERE?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific
and the Global Environment,
Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eni F.H.
Faleomavaega (chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific
and the Global Environment) presiding.
Mr. Faleomavaega. The hearing will come to order. This is a
joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on
Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, and also the
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. We
certainly welcome our witnesses this morning, and also members
of the public for joining us at this important hearing. My co-
chair is not here at the moment, but I am going to go ahead and
give my opening statement. I am glad to see my colleague and
friend from California who is the ranking member on the
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade.
On February 12 of this year, this subcommittee held a
hearing on the challenges presented by North Korea, and how the
Obama administration might remake United States policy toward
Pyongyang. Unfortunately, in the ensuing 4 months, North Korea
has taken a series of actions that are as provocative as any we
have seen in decades. How we respond to those actions is the
subject of today's hearing.
As we meet this morning, President Lee Myung-bak is winding
up his successful 3-day visit to the United States. His summit
meeting with President Obama and his meetings here on Capitol
Hill demonstrated that the U.S.-ROK alliance remains as strong
and vital as ever in promoting peace, stability and prosperity
in Northeast Asia and beyond. The President's visit also
reconfirmed our two countries' longstanding commitment to
working as closely as possible with one another, along with our
other allies and partners, in dealing with Pyongyang's
increasingly provocative actions, which are causing so much
tension on the Korean Peninsula.
When viewed in the context of the past 20 years, these
recent North Korean actions have come in unusually rapid
succession. Just before our last hearing, on January 30th,
Korea suspended or nullified all major inter-Korean agreements,
including the armistice, which has maintained peace between
North and South Korea since 1953. On March 19, Pyongyang
arrested two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who
were working near the border between China and North Korea.
Pyongyang then sentenced them to 12 years in prison labor camp
for what they referred to as ``grave crimes.'' On April 5,
defying appeals by the international community and a series of
U.N. resolutions, North Korea launched a long-range missile.
The United Nations Security Council responded by issuing a
Presidential Statement of Condemnation. Citing that Statement,
Pyongyang promptly announced its withdrawal from the Six-Party
Talks.
A day later, North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors from the
Yongbyon nuclear facility, and by the end of April, North Korea
declared that it would once again produce plutonium and
weaponize all of its fissile material. A month later, North
Korea raised the stakes even higher by conducting its second
nuclear test. By the next day, Pyongyang fired three short-
range missiles. Last Friday, the Security Council responded to
North Korea's actions by unanimously passing Resolution 1874,
which condemned Pyongyang's nuclear tests in the strongest
terms.
It also tightened sanctions to block Pyongyang's nuclear,
missile and proliferation activities and to widen the ban on
the country's arms exports and imports. In addition, the
resolution called on United Nations member states to inspect
and destroy all banned cargo to and from North Korea, whether
on the high seas, at seaports or airports, if reasonable
grounds existed to suspect violations. As United Nations
Ambassador Susan Rice said, ``These sanctions constitute a very
robust, tough regime, hopefully with teeth that will bite.''
Over the weekend, North Korea countered by stating that it
would regard an attempted blockade of any kind by the United
States and its supporters as an act of war, which would be
``met with a decisive military response.'' The threats posed by
North Korea are clear. Pyongyang's actions have raised tensions
in Northeast Asia and caused countries in the region to
reconsider their current military and strategic interests in
that area of the world. Japan, for example, is contemplating an
increase in its defense spending, and for the first time,
taking a serious look at developing an attack capability.
Such a capability and other steps that may be contemplated
could well lead to an arms race in Northeast Asia. There is
even discussion in some circles of Japan about gaining nuclear
capabilities, which the country can easily achieve given its
current technological advancements. In addition, North Korea's
advances in missile and nuclear weapons technology and in the
production of fissile materials also increase the potential for
proliferation by other states in the region.
While the threats posed by North Korea's actions are clear,
the reasons underlying them are less apparent. We have
something of a consensus among close observers of North Korea
that has formed regarding two likely motivations. First, North
Korea appears to be seeking advances in its nuclear weapons
capability and delivery systems to demonstrate their
effectiveness. Second, the country appears to be in the midst
of a political transition.
Kim Jong Il's health problems have apparently led him to
designate his 26-year-old son, Kim Jong-un, as successor. Given
a need to maintain support among the armed forces during this
transition, President Kim Jong Il may be trying to satisfy the
military's desire to test and improve its weapons system. The
threats posed by North Korea are grave, and we must address
them. How we do it is the focus of today's hearing.
Another question is whether the Six-Party Talks initiated
by the Bush administration remain relevant. In addition, how
important is China's role in all of this and what options does
the United States have now in the current crisis?
Fortunately, our bilateral relationship is as strong as
ever, encompassing social, cultural, economic, security and
diplomatic links with South Korea. Our two great countries
share values and interests, and millions of our citizens share
family and personal ties. Recently, the United States
strengthened these bonds by including South Korea in its visa
waiver program. Our trade relationship is just as strong.
Currently, our trade with South Korea ranks seventh in the
world.
On the security front, the bonds we forged in blood during
the Korean War will never be forgotten, especially when some
33,000 of our soldiers died during the Korean War fighting for
the freedom of our brothers and sisters in South Korea. South
Korea's deployment of forces to both Afghanistan and Iraq were
vital to both operations. Its pledge to join the Proliferation
Security Initiative to counter North Korea's proliferation
activities is similarly significant. The upgrading of Korea to
a NATO+3 member state within the U.S. Foreign Military Sales
program, I believe, reflects our growing security cooperation.
And now with President Lee's visit to Washington, our two
countries have once again reaffirmed our unconditional and
unwavering commitment to the bilateral alliance.
As we face the challenge of North Korea, we know that we
can count on our friends in Seoul, and they know that they can
count on us. It is my sincere hope that together, we can bring
Pyongyang back to the negotiating table and that we can make
real progress in reducing the security threats it poses on the
Korean Peninsula. I remain optimistic that the unified position
of the Security Council in passing Resolution 1874 offers us a
chance of that occurring, and it is my hope that today's
hearing sheds some light on how we can address the seemingly
intractable problems posed by North Korea. The issue of
nonproliferation presented by North Korea is the reason we are
holding this hearing jointly with my good friend, chairman of
the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, the
gentleman from California, Mr. Brad Sherman. I will now turn to
him for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Faleomavaega
follows:]Faleomavaega statement--Note: new file e-
mailed 11/2/09 deg.
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Mr. Sherman. I want to thank the gentleman from American
Samoa for co-hosting these hearings with our subcommittee. On
the morning of May 25, North Korea exploded an atomic device
with a 2- to 8-kiloton yield, which was unnerving given how
much greater this yield was than the half-kiloton yield of
2006. They also have conducted a barrage of missile tests in
the first half of this year. Now, conflict on the Korean
Peninsula is a distinct possibility, and the fact that North
Korea does have nuclear weapons makes that a more dangerous
possibility, but we should also focus on the fact that this is
a regime with a criminal lust for funds.
They have counterfeited currency, they have dealt drugs,
and my concern, among others, is that North Korea will keep the
first 15 nuclear weapons for itself and put the 16th on eBay.
North Korea threatens the heart of the nonproliferation regime
because like Iran, North Korea was a signatory to the
nonproliferation agreement. If North Korea is allowed to become
and remain a nuclear state, what will Japan and South Korea do,
and what implications does the general increase of nuclear
states have for the nonproliferation regime worldwide?
Today's subcommittee hearing seeks to examine policy
options for the United States. We ought to reflect on how we
got here. Six-Party Talks began in August 2003. A few months
after, North Korea had officially ``withdrawn'' from the
nonproliferation treaty. In 2007/2008, the agreements appeared
to have achieved significant temporary success. In February
2007, North Korea agreed to disable its key nuclear facilities
in exchange for food, energy and other benefits.
In July 2007, the North shut down the Yongbyon reactor, and
made a big television event of its destruction. In the midst of
this progress came an inconvenient fact through late 2007,
early 2008. We have been told by the Bush administration that
U.S. Government would remove the designation of North Korea as
a state sponsor of terrorism in return for what then Assistant
Secretary Chris Hill promised would be a complete and correct
declaration of North Korea's nuclear activities.
He told Congress in February 2008, this declaration must
include all nuclear weapons programs, materials, facilities,
including clarification of any proliferation activities. The
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a.k.a. North Korea, must
also address concerns related to any uranium enrichment
programs and activities. The declaration was received last
June, more than 6 months late. It was extremely incomplete. It
said nothing about North Korea's proliferation, in spite of
what we have seen in Syria.
It said nothing about uranium enrichment, and it probably
understated the amount of plutonium at the Yongbyon reactor.
Shortly after the receipt of these documents, the Washington
Post reported that the intelligence community found specks of
highly enriched uranium on the papers, virtual proof that North
Korea not only has the plutonium program at Yongbyon, but also
a clandestine program to enrich uranium. Needless to say, this
was not a good time, or a time that justified removing North
Korea from the terrorism list.
So, in response to the Bush administration notification, I
introduced H.R. 6420 with six bipartisan cosponsors to block
removing North Korea from the terrorism list. I was assured by
then Secretary Rice that we would get equivalent information
through the verification regime that we had been promised as
part of the declaration. Well, it is clear we did not get that,
and it is clear that the removal of North Korea from the
terrorism list was somewhere between a mistake and premature,
but we can continue to dance around with North Korea. The fact
is, they well understand the situation.
That situation is, they can do what they are doing and get
away with it, not only in the area of nuclear activities, but
they can probably resume the counterfeiting as well. The reason
for this is simple. They are getting subsidies from China, not
because China loves their regime, but because China finds that
the most convenient thing for China to do, and given the
overwhelming political power of the importers in this country,
we can't do the obvious, which is to hint to China that their
continued access to United States markets requires a change in
their North Korea policy.
So China will basically continue its policy. Yes, we have
something passed at the U.N., watered down as it is. It poses
no threat to the North Korean regime, and until, and I think it
is highly unlikely this occurs, until China believes that
either it has to change its policy toward North Korea or risk
access to the United States market, or at least some
interruption of that access; or unless China believes that its
policy toward North Korea is going to lead to a nuclear South
Korea, a nuclear Japan or a nuclear Taiwan. Unless China has
that game-changing information, they are simply not going to
change their policies, and when we look at our trade policy
toward China, we not only have a disaster for the American
manufacturing industry, we also have a disaster for our foreign
policy. Given the enormous profits that are to be made by
continuing the status quo, it is highly unlikely that it is
going to change.
I yield back.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the chairman for his statement.
My senior ranking member is not here, the gentleman from
Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, so I will now turn the time over to the
Ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade, the gentleman from California, Mr.
Royce, for his opening statement.
Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I certainly
look forward to the testimony from our panel. I wish the
administration, though, had agreed to testify today. This is a
very important issue that we are struggling with. This is the
second hearing this year that this subcommittee has held on
North Korea. In February when we held this hearing, we heard
testimony that North Korea ``is changing.'' It certainly has.
Since that last hearing, North Korean policy, which has
always been pretty aggressive, has gone into overdrive. We have
had a long-range missile test, a nuclear test, uranium
enrichment, and we have had the detention and sentencing of two
American journalists to 12 years of hard labor. Yesterday,
North Korea accused Laura Ling and Euna Lee of ``faking moving
images'' of its human rights abuses. There is nothing fake
about the house of horrors that is the North Korean system and
the impact that it has had, to those of us that have been in
North Korea. We have seen the consequences that it has had on
its 1.9 million malnourished people, that we know of, who have
starved to death as a result of that system.
In response to the North Korean threat, the U.N. Security
Council passed a resolution last week. Predictably, our
ambassador to the U.N. boasted that it will ``bite in a
meaningful way.'' Unfortunately, we have seen this before. A
Chinese spokesman called the resolution ``balanced,'' and a
Russian ambassador called it ``moderate.'' I think that says it
all. As was the case in 2006, it is going to come down to
enforcement, which was certainly lacking then. As Chairman Brad
Sherman pointed out, we are going to continue to see China
subsidize North Korea.
This weekend's comments by South Korean President Lee
Myung-bak to the Wall Street Journal are worth noting.
President Lee, who we met with yesterday, said that the Six-
Party Talks aren't working and need to be changed. Defense
Secretary Gates has said he is ``tired of buying the same horse
twice.'' Yesterday, President Obama promised to ``break [the]
pattern'' of crisis to concession to crisis. Better late than
never. The compromise U.N. resolution aside, the United States
should deploy our own measures to undercut North Korea's
economy and target its proliferation activities.
I can think of no more effective measure than the 2005
sanctioning of Banco Delta Asia for laundering counterfeit
United States currency for North Korea. It is a little vexing
that North Korea is again counterfeiting United States bills.
If we recall what happened then, when Treasury was able to
convince the administration to deploy that strategy, banks
across Asia refused to do business with Kim Jong Il. As a
result, he was unable to pay his generals, and he got very,
very antsy about that.
It is the only time I have really seen his attitude change
from one of constant aggression. Frankly, things were at a
standstill for North Korea. That is until sanctions were
dropped in the naive belief that North Korea would bargain away
its nuclear program. If we are serious about a nuclear-free
Korean Peninsula, the effort should be replicated. A former
United States official who spearheaded this sanctions effort
called Banco Delta Asia the ``tip of the iceberg'' with respect
to North Korea's illicit activities.
Indeed, news reports indicate that South Korea has given
the United States information on between 10 and 20 North Korean
bank accounts in China. One of these are in Switzerland, and
that North Korean counterfeiting has been ramped up in recent
months. We needed to act on these accounts yesterday. North
Korean proliferation to the Middle East certainly heightens
concerns. Pyongyang's cooperation with states such as Iran and
Syria is very, very well documented.
Last August, India responded to a United States request and
blocked its airspace to a North Korean plane delivering illicit
cargo to Iran. That plane had to turn back. There was the
instance where they built a replica of their reactor that they
had at Yongbyon on the Euphrates River in Syria. North Korean
proliferation makes proposals to cap its nuclear program a non-
starter. While diplomacy dithers, we need to be bolstering our
defenses against North Korean proliferation.
That Seoul has finally joined the Proliferation Security
Initiative is welcome, yet our last line of defense here is
missile defense. The last line is that ability to intercept,
which has been slashed by the Obama administration. While
Pentagon officials testified before the Senate yesterday that
North Korea's missiles could hit the United States in 3 years,
House Democrats rejected efforts to restore missile defense
cuts in the Armed Services Committee.
North Korea, in the midst of a leadership struggle, has
dropped the pretense of being willing to negotiate away its
nuclear program. The sooner we recognize this and focus in with
a renewed effort to box out North Korea from the international
financial system--which is very effective because their money
is worthless--they need hard currency.
I have talked to defectors who shared with me that they
weren't able to continue the missile programs at times when the
hard currency crunch was put on North Korea.
Why? Because they couldn't buy those clandestine, in this
case, gyroscopes made in Japan that they were trying to buy on
the black market in order to continue their missile line. You
shut everything down when you shut down the hard currency.
Boxing out North Korea from the international financial system,
along with these other measures will give us a chance to slow
down their program. We need to cease playing a game in which
the hard currency that we put into the country, or even the
food aid, which was not being monitored. We had to end our food
aid for that very reason. Other states that have put food aid
in, like the French NGOs, testify to us that food aid ends up
on the Pyongyang food exchange where it is sold for hard
currency for the regime.
Half of the country is a no-go area where the food is not
delivered. The food that is delivered, we have monitored, some
of that goes to the army. It is really time to understand the
nature of the strategy we have been dealing with on the other
side of the table.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from California for
his statement. At this time, on my right side, as a courtesy to
the vice chairman of the Subcommittee of Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade, I turn to the gentleman from
Georgia, Mr. Scott, if he has an opening statement to make.
Mr. Scott. Yes, I do, and thank you very much. This is
clearly an extraordinarily timely hearing. There certainly is
no more pressing issue for the security of our nation, and
indeed the world, than North Korea's reckless pursuit of
nuclear weapons technology. The Obama administration, we in
Congress, are faced with an extraordinary dilemma. Every day,
North Korea's capability grows and brings ever more territory
into range of their missiles and their maniacal posturing, and
what fears me most about this very serious situation is that I
feel we may have very well lost whatever momentum we had in
dealing with this crisis.
The Six-Party Talks have stalled and certainly bilateral
negotiations have proven equally unfruitful. We are dealing
with a relatively aging person in leadership who has recently
had a stroke. We do not know what his physical and mental
capacities are. If something happens to him, there will be a
collective leadership in place which we have very little
information about. There are question marks about his
succession and whether his sons are, at this point, ready.
So what mechanisms do we have left for dealing with this
regime? There is no limit to what a government will do when it
ceases to care about its people. That is what is happening in
North Korea, and certainly Kim Jong Il's regime has no regard
for the health and well-being of its own people. So clearly,
what regard does he have for you and for me? Kim Jong Il would
rather allow his own people to starve to death than give up
their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Starvation is rampant in North Korea. Indeed, recent events
make me wonder if they have ever negotiated at all in good
faith on this issue. It sort of reminds me very much of an old
Peanuts comic strip, when Lucy would ply the affable yet
gullible Charlie Brown into running full speed ahead to kick a
football and then would yank the football out from under him at
the last minute leaving him flying through the air to land with
a heavy thud, and of course, we are the Charlie Brown in this
scenario.
So I wonder, how many times to we have to fall on our rear
end before we stop running to kick this football? How long
until we begin to explore options outside of the Six-Party
Talks? Are we already doing that, and are they working? It
would seem not. And can we ever trust North Korea to say what
it means and do what it says? I doubt it very seriously, as
long as, and here is my major point, as long as Russia and
China continue to play benefactor, and ladies and gentlemen,
this is the key.
I feel that the key and the answer to this dilemma with
North Korea does not lie with either the Obama administration
or us in Congress. It lies with China and Russia. They must
become more forceful with North Korea in order to convince them
to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is China that
whatever feed they get, it is China. China is their benefactor.
Not until China and Russia see North Korea as a threat will we
begin to unravel this situation.
They hold the key. They hold the trump cards in this drama
to be able to stop North Korea, and I am certainly pleased that
we were finally able to have China and Russia join us in
approving more strict U.N. sanctions. That is a good sign. That
is the road I think that we have to travel, and it seems that
Russia and China are finally starting to realize that indeed,
North Korea poses a threat to them as well as us and the rest
of the Western world.
But the question is this: When North Korea tests our will
to enforce these increased sanctions, as they most assuredly
will, are China and Russia in a position to give North Korea
the toughness, maybe we should say the tough love, that it
really needs, or will they cave to pressure, and if so, we need
to find out what that pressure is. Undoubtedly, this is a
complex issue, and solving this crisis will require a great
deal of creative thinking on everyone's part, but try we must.
The safety of the world and this planet rests with what we do
concerning North Korea.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from Georgia from
his statement, and now I would like to turn the time over to
the ranking member of our Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and
the Global Environment, the gentleman from Illinois, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Manzullo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
very important hearing. I want to commend the valiant work of
Ambassador Chris Hill in trying to juggle all these balls at
one time, because that is indeed what we see going on, but I
also see the North Koreans as trying to play games with
America. Perhaps they were sincere in dealing with Mr. Bush and
then decided, well, we have got a new President, let us see if
we can get a better deal out of him.
I don't think that is going to work, because the mettle to
stop North Korea from becoming even more of a nuclear state
surpasses party lines, and we have to dig in under this
administration as we dug in under the other administration to
make sure we do everything possible to stop the North Koreans,
and so I don't think their bidding contest, looking for a
better deal with the new President is going to work, and I know
they follow public opinion very closely, and perhaps they will
pick up on this very short opening statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Manzullo
follows:]Manzullo statement deg.
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Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for
his statement. I would also like to recognize on the dais some
of our distinguished members of the committee who have joined
us for this hearing, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly,
the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, and the gentleman
from Nebraska, Mr. Fortenberry. I am glad that you could join
us. Mr. Poe from Texas is also here with us, and Mr. Boozman,
as well.
As a courtesy to some of the members of the public, I can
feel your pain standing there. I am going to have you come sit
here, as long as you don't press the talk button. There are
about 12 seats right in the third tier. You can come and sit
there, if you are inclined--so you won't have to stand. Come
and join us. We are not prejudiced.
There are some more seats here. How about some of the young
scholars that we have here.
Mr. Poe. Mr. Chairman, they are trying to figure out which
side to sit on. [Laughter.]
Mr. Faleomavaega. Just to remind you, if you are on the
right side, you are a Democrat. If you are on the left side,
you are a Republican. No, please join us.
Mr. Connolly. It kind of works out, Mr. Chairman. It is two
to one.
Mr. Faleomavaega. [Speaking Samoan.] That was the language
that Adam and Eve spoke in the Garden of Eden, if you want to
know. Our young gentlemen here came all the way from Samoa to
join us.
Well, this morning, I certainly would like to offer my
personal welcome to our distinguished guests, members of the
panel whom we have invited to testify at our hearing this
morning, and I would like to just share with the members of
both subcommittees the distinguished records of scholarship and
experience they have had, and I think their sense of expertise
fits right into the picture in terms of what we are trying to
deliberate on this morning.
The first gentleman that I want to introduce is Mr. Selig
Harrison, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars and currently the director of the Asia
Program at the Center for International Policy. He has
specialized in South Asia and East Asia for some 58 years as a
journalist and scholar, and is the author of five books and
probably several hundred articles that have appeared in all the
major national newspapers and magazines.
One aspect of Mr. Harrison's distinguished record is the
fact that the former chairman of this subcommittee called Mr.
Harrison a prophet, for the simple reason that he gave a
warning about 18 months before the war that took place between
India and Pakistan, predicting correctly what would happen in
that area of the world. He also predicted that Russia would
invade Afghanistan, and that is exactly what happened in later
years, and that Russia would not be able to take control of
Afghanistan. I am very happy and pleased that Mr. Harrison has
been able to give us the benefit of his time to join us at this
hearing this morning.
Ambassador Thomas Hubbard is a senior director of McLarty
Associates in Washington where he specializes in Asian affairs,
was a Foreign Service Officer for nearly 40 years, having
served as U.S. Ambassador to Korea, Ambassador to the
Philippines and as Ambassador to Malaysia. I think that should
give us a real sense of understanding of this gentleman's
record and his experience in serving in that area of the world.
With us also is Scott Snyder, currently a senior associate
in the Washington program at the International Relations
program of The Asia Foundation. He joined the Asia Foundation
as a country representative in Korea in 2000 for 4 years, wrote
several op-ed articles in journals and newspapers, is a
graduate of Rice University, holds a master's in Regional
Studies at Harvard University, and is very familiar with the
Korean Peninsula.
Dr. Richard Bush is currently visiting professor at Cornell
University in China and the Asia-Pacific Studies Program there,
and is also director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy
Studies at the Brookings Institution. He served previously as
chairman of the board and managing director of the American
Institute in Taiwan. He has held a host of other positions
including as a senior advisor to the former chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressman Lee Hamilton, and as
a consultant to then chairman of the Asia, the Pacific and the
Global Environment Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, my good
friend, former Congressman Steve Solarz from New York.
I hope I haven't forgotten anybody here. Did I miss
anybody? Gentlemen, I do want to thank you for taking the time
from your busy schedule and coming and sharing with us. Again,
the question is, ``North Korea's Nuclear and Missile Tests and
the Six-Party Talks: ``Where Do We Go From Here?''
Mr. Harrison?
STATEMENT OF MR. SELIG S. HARRISON, DIRECTOR OF THE ASIA
PROGRAM, THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Mr. Harrison. Mr. Chairman, this is a very dangerous moment
in our relations with North Korea, the most dangerous since
June 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang with the
grudging consent of the Clinton administration. Carter
negotiated an agreement with Kim Il Sung that headed off a war
and paved the way for the suspension of the North Korean
nuclear weapons program for the next 8 years. Now, we urgently
need another high-level unofficial emissary, but the Obama
administration is not even prepared to give its grudging
consent to Al Gore.
Vice President Gore wants to negotiate the release of the
two imprisoned U.S. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both
employees of Current TV, which he founded, and I believe that
he could in the process pave the way for a reduction of
tensions. As members of this committee may know, Al Gore met
Hillary Clinton on May 11, May 11. He asked for the cooperation
of the administration in facilitating a mission to Pyongyang
and in empowering him to succeed in such a mission by exploring
with him ways in which the present stalemate in relations
between North Korea and the United States can be broken.
She said she would consider his request, but the
administration has subsequently delayed action. The
administration's position is that the case of the two
imprisoned journalists is a humanitarian matter and must be
kept separate from the political and security issues between
the two countries. In a News Hour interview with U.N.
Ambassador Susan Rice on June 10, Margaret Warner asked Rice
how the latest U.N. sanctions resolution would ``complicate
efforts to win the release of the two American journalists,''
but Rice turned the question around, declaring that the issue
of the two journalists ``cannot be allowed to complicate our
efforts to hold North Korea accountable'' for its nuclear and
missile tests.
I believe this is a very unrealistic position. It shows a
callous disregard for the welfare of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
It ignores the danger of a war resulting from the
administration's naive attempts to pressure North Korea into
abandonment of its nuclear and missile programs. Past
experience with North Korea has repeatedly shown that pressure
invariably provokes a retaliatory response that makes matters
worse. The administration should instead actively pursue the
release of the two women through intervention on their behalf
by a high-level unofficial emissary empowered to signal United
States readiness for tradeoffs leading to the reduction of
tensions, such as the provision of the 200,000 tons of oil that
had been promised to North Korea, but had not been provided,
when the Six-Party Talks broke off last fall.
This was one-third of the energy aid promised in return for
the disablement of the Yongbyon reactor. Of course, any
agreement to provide that oil should require that North Korea
stop its present efforts to rebuild the reactor. Now, looking
ahead, the goal of the United States should be to cap the North
Korean nuclear arsenal at its existing level and to move toward
normalized relations as the necessary precondition for progress
toward eventual denuclearization.
Now, the gentleman from California, I believe, said that
capping is a non-starter. That may be, but it is the only way,
the only way we are going to get anywhere, and it is very
important to keep this option of capping as our major
diplomatic objective. The prospects for capping the arsenal at
its present level have improved as a result of Pyongyang's June
13 announcement admitting that it has an R&D program for
uranium enrichment.
Since this program is in its early stages, and it is not
yet actually enriching uranium, there is time for the United
States to negotiate inspection safeguards limiting enrichment
to the levels necessary for civilian uses. Until now, North
Korea's denial of an R&D program has kept the uranium issue off
the negotiating table and it has kept alive unfounded
suspicions that it is capable of making weapons-grade uranium.
It is very far, indeed, from that.
Progress toward denuclearization would require United
States steps to assure North Korea that it will not be the
victim of a nuclear attack. In Article Three, Section One of
the Agreed Framework, the United States pledged that it ``will
provide formal assurances against the threat or use of nuclear
weapons by the United States'' simultaneous with complete
denuclearization. Pyongyang is likely to insist on a
reaffirmation of this pledge before there is any eventual
denuclearization.
Realistically, if the United States is unwilling to give up
the option of using nuclear weapons against North Korea, it
will be necessary to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea
while maintaining adequate United States deterrent forces in
the Pacific, and we do have adequate deterrent forces in the
Pacific. We should keep this in mind as we paint alarmist
scenarios of the danger that we face.
The President set the tone for a new direction in United
States relations with the Muslim world in Cairo. He
acknowledged the legacy of colonialism in the Middle East. He
acknowledged the impact of the Israeli occupation on the
Palestinians and the United States role in overthrowing the
elected Mossadegh regime in Iran. Similarly, I believe, he
should break through the present poisonous atmosphere by
expressing his empathy for the deepest feelings of the Korean
people in both the North and the South, which he hasn't done.
Visiting Pyongyang on March 31, 1992, the Reverend Billy
Graham declared ``Korean unity was a victim of the Cold War.''
He acknowledged the United States role in the division of Korea
and he prayed for peaceful reunification soon. President Obama
should declare his support for peaceful reunification through a
confederation, as envisaged in the North-South summit pledges
of June 2000 and October 2007, in order to set to rest North
Korean fears that I found very much alive on the last of my 11
visits in January, in order to set to rest North Korean fears
that the United States will join with the right-wing elements
in Japan and South Korea now seeking reunification by promoting
the collapse of the North Korean regime.
Above all, he should express his empathy for the painful
memories of Japanese colonialism shared by all Koreans.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated complete
insensitivity to these memories during her Tokyo visit on
February 18 by needlessly embroiling herself in the explosive
abductee dispute between North Korea and Japan and by ignoring
Kim Jong Il's apology to Prime Minister Koizumi on September
17, 2002. This abductee dispute is a bilateral dispute, and to
paraphrase Susan Rice, ``should not be allowed to complicate''
the reduction of tensions with Pyongyang and its eventual
denuclearization.
In the event of another war with North Korea resulting from
efforts to enforce the U.N. sanctions, it is Japan that North
Korea would attack, in my view, not South Korea, because
nationalistic younger generals with no experience of the
outside world are now in a strong position in the North Korean
leadership following Kim Jong Il's illness and his reduced role
in day-to-day management. Some of these nationalistic younger
generals, I learned in Pyongyang, were outraged when Kim Jong
Il apologized to Koizumi in 2002 and they have alarmed others
in the regime with their unrealistic assessments of North
Korea's capabilities in the event of a conflict with Japan.
The U.N. sanctions, in conclusion, have further
strengthened the position of these nationalistic younger
generals because all North Koreans feel that they do face a
threat from the United States nuclear weapons deployed near
their borders. All North Koreans, I believe, would be united,
in my view, if tensions resulting from attempts to enforce the
sanctions should escalate to war.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrison
follows:]Selig Harrison deg.
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Harrison.
Ambassador Hubbard?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE THOMAS C. HUBBARD, SENIOR DIRECTOR,
MCLARTY ASSOCIATES (FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLICS OF
KOREA, THE PHILIPPINES AND PALAU)
Ambassador Hubbard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting
me here this morning. I have had the opportunity in Korea and I
think also the Philippines to invite you to my ambassadorial
residence and I am glad to be here in your house this morning.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Yes, I have not forgotten, and certainly
appreciate the courtesies that you have extended. Thank you.
Ambassador Hubbard. Also, Mr. Royce has visited both of
these places, and I hope at the outset it would not be
inappropriate for me to add one further element to my
biographic information that you did not mention and that is
that I was actually the first U.S. Ambassador to the Republic
of Palau. I was ambassador there concurrently with my
assignment to----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Noted for the record, you were the first
Ambassador to the Republic of Palau,----
Ambassador Hubbard. That is correct.
Mr. Faleomavaega [continuing]. Who has just accepted four
Uighurs to be part of that little island nation.
Ambassador Hubbard. That is exactly why I mentioned it. I
wanted to take this occasion to----
Mr. Faleomavaega. And I appreciate that.
Ambassador Hubbard [continuing]. Say how much I appreciate
and welcome their help in dealing with this Uighur situation.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Ambassador.
Ambassador Hubbard. Mr. Chairman, I have been deeply
involved in North Korean affairs for over 15 years, first as a
senior official in the East Asia Bureau in the State Department
during the Clinton administration, later as Ambassador to South
Korea under the Bush administration, and more recently as a
happy member of the private sector often asked to comment on
North Korean matters. Throughout this period, the central
United States objective has been a verifiable end to North
Korea's nuclear weapons program, and our preferred means of
achieving that objective has been dialogue.
We have of course seen many ups and downs in the various
forms of negotiations that have been tried since 1992 when then
Undersecretary of State Arnold Kanter held the first direct
talks with a senior North Korean official during the first Bush
administration. As a senior member of the Clinton
administration delegation led by Robert Gallucci that first sat
down with a DPRK delegation in New York in June 1993, I share
the frustration that we have heard this morning that this
problem has grown only worse over time despite all our efforts.
The North Korean threat that we face in 2009 is
significantly more serious than the one we confronted in the
early 1990s. Whereas we suspected that the North Koreans had
squirreled away enough plutonium for one, maybe two nuclear
weapons when they balked at International Atomic Energy Agency
inspections in 1993, 16 years later we know that they have
substantially more. They have conducted two underground nuclear
explosions and have tested a range of ballistic missiles that
could become delivery systems.
Earlier agreements to forgo nuclear weapons
notwithstanding, the DPRK's nuclear weapons programs are once
again up and running. The North Koreans now boast of their
nuclear deterrent and maintain that they are willing to return
to the negotiating table only if their status as a nuclear
weapons state is recognized, but in the wake of North Korea's
second nuclear test and successive missile tests, I have been
asked for my assessment of the motivations behind these and
other provocative acts.
It goes without saying that no one really knows what goes
on behind the walls of one of the most isolated and secretive
nations in the world, but we must assume that regime survival
is Kim Jong Il's most fundamental objective and that he sees
the United States and its alliance with South Korea as the
primary threat to his hold on power. For the past 15 years, we
have tended to see North Korea's provocative behavior as a
negotiating tactic aimed primarily at attracting our attention,
at drawing the United States into bilateral negotiations in
which we would offer security assurances and financial aid in
exchange for North Korean promises to give up its nuclear
programs.
That was probably a correct assessment until recently and
remains one of the DPRK's important aims at the outset of a new
administration. However, I believe we have entered into a new
situation in which the DPRK leadership is motivated as much by
domestic factors as by an interest in manipulating the United
States. What has changed? Leadership transition is one new
factor. Having suffered a debilitating stroke at the age of 67,
Kim Jong Il is bound to be thinking about his legacy and about
leadership succession.
There are widespread reports that he has chosen his 27-
year-old youngest son to be his successor. It may be that he
has come to see his nuclear missile programs less as a
bargaining chip than as his best security option, a legacy of
his leadership that will ensure the survival of a successor
regime and give the DPRK a continuing voice in world affairs
despite its economic failures.
Following the collapse of its principal international
benefactor, the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s, the DPRK
leadership appeared to signal that it saw a closer relationship
with the United States as the best way to ensure regime
survival. Sig Harrison was one of the prophets who foreshadowed
that approach. The North Koreans also pursued warmer relations
with South Korea, with whom it signed a mutual denuclearization
agreement in 1992, but as it enters a difficult transition
period, the DPRK appears to have at least temporarily abandoned
that approach in favor of a return to its traditional approach
of self-isolation, this time armed with a demonstrated, albeit
rudimentary, nuclear capability.
If the DPRK leadership is determined to turn its back on
the world, it is a profound tragedy for the people of North
Korea, since only by joining the international community can
they gain the assistance and technology that they need to
overcome their enormous economic challenges. Through dialogue
in various venues, the U.S. and its partners in the region have
long offered such assistance in exchange for the DPRK's
abandonment of its nuclear programs.
Sadly, the DPRK has consistently failed to abide by its
commitments, obviously hedging its bet on a strategic
relationship with the U.S. by seeking to hold onto its nuclear
card as long as possible. I wouldn't argue that successive
United States administrations and our allies have always been
wise or consistent in their approach to North Korea. Mutual
confidence has been hard to build. However, the North Korean
regime has only itself to blame for the suffering of its
people.
By failing to avail itself of the benefits that were
offered in the Six-Party Talks at the end of the Bush
administration and then by rejecting the hand that was extended
by the Obama administration, the DPRK leadership has gone out
of its way to reject its best hope for security and prosperity.
Where, then, should we go from here? I agree with the basic
approach being followed by the Obama administration. First and
foremost, we must not recognize the DPRK as a permanent nuclear
power.
Some prominent Americans have argued that nuclear weapons
are now a fact of life in North Korea, too valuable for the
regime to ever give up. They argue that talks are futile. We
should instead build missile defenses and isolate the DPRK,
waiting for eventual Korean unification to solve the nuclear
problem for us. I disagree with that view. While the potential
of the DPRK actually using nuclear weapons seems remote, the
risk of transfer to other dangerous countries or groups is such
that we cannot rely entirely on deterrents and containment.
Moreover, acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons
state without efforts to change things would be deeply alarming
to some of our closest allies and could well lead to a regional
arms race. While recognizing that quick success is unlikely, we
need to vigorously pursue a proactive policy aimed at
verifiable denuclearization. A willingness to engage North
Korea directly, combined with pressure, is the best way
forward. North Korea's defiance of the international community
has been costly to North Korea.
One result of its outrageous recent behavior has been to
bring the other partners in the Six-Party Talks closer
together. When President Obama and ROK President Lee Myung-bak
met yesterday in Washington, they displayed the most unified
front that we have achieved since our two countries began
direct dialogue with North Korea on nuclear issues. Moreover--
--
Mr. Faleomavaega. Not to cut you short, Mr. Ambassador, but
we have got a little time there----
Ambassador Hubbard. I have got 5 seconds.
Mr. Faleomavaega. All right, 5 seconds. Thank you.
Ambassador Hubbard. Agreeing that North Korea's challenge
to the international community must have consequences, China
and Russia supported a strong U.N. Security Council resolution
condemning North Korea's behavior in no uncertain terms, and
calling for concrete steps to address the proliferation issue.
If the North Koreans continue to deny the international
community, pressure is our only option, and it is crucial that
the measures called for in the Security Council resolution be
carefully implemented.
At the same time, we should leave open a path to dialogue,
as President Obama has done. Now, since the beginning of
dialogue with North Korea, we have looked for clear signals of
whether the DPRK leadership has made a strategic decision to
give up its nuclear weapons programs. Several times, the DPRK
has proclaimed its willingness to do so but insisted upon a
phased process that has enabled it to obtain assurances and
benefits without taking irrevocable steps to end the weapons
capability.
When we get back to the negotiating table, as I believe we
will once the North Korean leadership situation stabilizes, we
will need to insist upon a broader approach that will truly
test North Korea's strategic intention from the outset, and I
continue to believe, Mr. Chairman, that the Six-Party Talks are
the best means of conducting those negotiations and we should
keep trying to get them back in operation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Hubbard
follows:]Thomas Hubbard deg.
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Ambassador Hubbard.
Mr. Snyder?
STATEMENT OF MR. SCOTT SNYDER, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR U.S.-KOREA
POLICY, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, THE ASIA
FOUNDATION
Mr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
be here to present my views at a particularly sensitive moment
in which tensions continue to escalate on the Korean Peninsula,
as the co-chairs' opening statements have amply shown. Through
a series of North Korean provocations and U.N. Security Council
responses, the North Koreans have declared that they will never
participate in Six-Party Talks, nor will they be bound any
longer to any agreement of the talks.
In lieu of the Six-Party Talks, I believe that North
Korea's missile and nuclear tests have mobilized a renewed
commitment among concerned parties to a Six-Party process of
policy coordination efforts in which the United States
administration continues to work closely with North Korea's
immediate neighbors to respond to North Korea's provocative
actions. I think one evidence of the development of the Six-
Party process is illustrated in the context of a P-5 Plus Two
working group at the UNSC, in which the core members of the
Six-Party process not on the U.N. Security Council, Japan and
South Korea, were also brought in to negotiate the UNSC
Resolution 1874.
As I explain in my written testimony and am prepared to
talk in greater detail, the Six-Party process enables the
United States to pursue a multi-track strategy designed to
shape North Korea's context and perceived choices while
minimizing dependence on political cooperation with specific
North Korean leaders. Such a strategy focuses on alliance-based
cooperation with Korea and Japan and enhanced prospects for
cooperation with China to support either engagement or a
coordinated response to North Korean contingencies, but in the
time here I want to emphasize six reasons why I believe a Six-
Party process focused on cooperation among those members of the
Six-Party Talks is critical.
First, the Six-Party Talks process signals a continued
commitment by the concerned parties to the mutually shared
objectives represented in the Six-Party Joint Statement of
2005, including denuclearization, diplomatic normalization,
economic development and peace on the peninsula. Second, the
Six-Party process is a symbol of a region-wide commitment to
the objective of denuclearization of North Korea. It is
important that the United States continue to reiterate its
commitment to the Six-Party Talks as a way of signaling that it
has not abandoned the objective of achieving North Korea's
denuclearization.
Third, intensified policy coordination among concerned
parties through the Six-Party process provides the best
available means by which to increase pressure on North Korea to
return to the Six-Party Talks and honor its commitments to
denuclearization. I might add that that process also puts
pressure on the other parties in that process to live up to
their international commitments in terms of implementation of
the U.N. Security Council resolution.
Fourth, the Six-Party process provides an umbrella under
which concerned parties may conduct renewed diplomacy with
North Korea with the objective of providing a pathway for
returning to the Six-Party Talks as a means by which to pursue
North Korea's denuclearization. Fifth, the implementation of
the Six-Party process reinforces practical coordination
measures among members of the Six-Party Talks, but unlike the
Six-Party Talks, the Six-Party process cannot be paralyzed by a
North Korean veto.
The Six-Party process, unlike the possible announcement of
a Five-Party Talks format, does not explicitly exclude North
Korea and it does not prejudge whether or when the North
Koreans might be willing to come back to the negotiating table.
Sixth, the development of the Six-Party process involving
enhanced coordination among the United States and North Korea's
neighbors does not make assumptions about the future of North
Korea's leadership or about the successive process. It does not
prejudge whether or when the North Koreans might be willing to
come back to negotiations.
A final point that I might make related to North Korea's
seeming inward focus is that I believe that it complicates the
task of engaging North Korea, either through dialogue or
pressure, because the risks of engagement are heightened as
long as North Korea prioritizes internal over external factors,
raising the political risks associated with reaching out to
North Korea while diminishing the prospect that North Korea
will take the initiative to satisfy external interests.
However, there is a concern that if the North Koreans
decide that they have no way out, they might lash out, and for
this reason I believe it is important for the administration to
continuously adopt a posture of openness, to resumption of
diplomatic dialogue with North Korea, at the same time that the
United States engages in regional coordination in an effort to
shape the context in which North Korea considers options to
pursue its own security.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Snyder
follows:]Scott Snyder deg.
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Snyder.
Mr. Bush?
STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARD C. BUSH III, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
NORTHEAST ASIAN POLICY STUDIES, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION (FORMER NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICER FOR EAST
ASIA)
Mr. Bush. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittees. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for mentioning Steve
Solarz, who is a mentor to us both. If I could correct your
introduction in one point, I am still working at the Brookings
Institution. I certainly hope I am.
Mr. Faleomavaega. The record is corrected.
Mr. Bush. I have submitted a written statement and I ask
that that be included in the record.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Without objection, all of the gentlemen's
statements are made part of the record.
Mr. Bush. Orally, I wish to make six points. First of all,
the game in Northeast Asia has changed. North Korea's spurning
of President Obama's hand of engagement and its missile test
and nuclear test have transformed the challenge that it poses
to the international system. Before, there was hope that a
negotiated solution might offer enough incentives to get
Pyongyang to abandon the nuclear option. Now, that hope has
disappeared for the foreseeable future.
Consequently, for now, the Six-Party Talks have lost their
rationale. The assumption of the Six-Party Talks, of course,
was that North Korea might give up its nuclear weapons and
programs. The only question was how to induce it to do so. The
Six-Party Talks were a worthwhile venture, but recent North
Korean statements and actions make it clear that it will not
denuclearize. The working assumption of the Six-Party Talks no
longer exists. That may change at some point, but for now, we
have to face that reality.
Second, as members have noted, North Korea's missile and
nuclear choice exacerbates two dangers. The first is the
transfer of nuclear technology, fissile materials and/or
nuclear weapons themselves to countries or parties that are
hostile to the United States. The second is destabilizing the
security situation in Northeast Asia. Both of these dangers are
serious. How we respond depends on the relative seriousness of
each, but neither can be ignored. In addressing the
proliferation threat, for example, we should not downplay the
importance of Japan's and South Korea's confidence in our
defense commitments to them.
Third, even thought deg. the prospects for the
Six-Party Talks in the near term are bleak, the United States,
China, South Korea, Japan and Russia should remain committed to
the idea of a negotiations process should conditions change for
the better. By that I mean North Korea changing from its
current course and affirming in a credible way its commitment
to the goal of the talks, denuclearization, and to its past
pledges.
Fourth, China's role in the North Korea issue is crucial
but complicated. Its trade with and investment in the DPRK have
expanded substantially during this decade. If Beijing imposed a
trade embargo on North Korea, it could bring the country to its
knees, but China has been reluctant to impose severe economic
sanctions. First of all, it has doubted that they would elicit
a positive response, and it worries that too much external
pressure on North Korea might cause the collapse of the DPRK
regime, producing, among other things, a large flow of refugees
into northeast China.
Thus, North Korea's dependence on China is in fact a kind
of reverse leverage. I believe, however, there are changes
underway in China's view. Before 2009, China took an evenhanded
approach to the effort to secure the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula, believing that both Pyongyang and Washington
were each responsible for the slow pace of progress. After the
recent tests, by all reports, China is quite angry at
Pyongyang. The DPRK has trashed the Six-Party Talks, which
China created, and given the United States, Japan and South
Korea reasons to stiffen their defense postures in the
Northeast Asian region, which undermines China's security, or
China believes that.
So North Korea has become a threat to China. For Beijing,
regional stability is becoming as important as domestic
stability. Unlike before, China agrees that for now, the
premise of the Six-Party Talks has disappeared. China's anger
at the DPRK and its understanding that we are in a new
situation was clear in the sanctions the U.N. Security Council
passed on June 12. These are not perfect but they are detailed
and far-reaching.
China and Russia had to give their agreement. The test will
be implementation, but I do not believe that Beijing would have
agreed to this text if it planned to treat the sanctions as a
dead letter. We will see, and I think we should reserve
judgment on implementation. I am confident that the U.S.
implementation will be robust.
Fifth, if there is any change for the better in North
Korean policy, it is not likely to come quickly or in response
to modest amounts of pressure. That is because of the
converging and reinforcing factors that led the DPRK to its
current policy, but basically, I agree with Ambassador Hubbard
that the succession process is the important factor here and we
are going to have to wait for that to play out. Let me be
clear, though. The death of Kim Jong Il will create the
possibility, and only the possibility, of a more favorable DPRK
approach. The international community should prepare for the
possibility that North Korea may never be willing to give up
its nuclear weapons under any conditions. In that case, I think
we have to think about five-party containment.
My sixth and final point: Even if the international
community does nothing, North Korea will change after the death
of Kim Jong Il. No one knows how change will occur, but one
possibility is collapse, with profound consequences for the
United States, South Korea, Japan and China. It is my
impression, regrettably, that these countries have yet to
engage in the consultations necessary to prepare for the
possibility of rapid and destabilizing change, yet we ignore
the danger of collapse at our collective peril.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bush
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Bush. I have about a
hundred questions that I want to ask you gentlemen, but as a
courtesy to our distinguished members on the committee, I am
going to withhold my questions for now. I would like to ask the
vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade, Mr. Scott, for his line of
questions, and I am going to stick to the 5-minute rule because
we have other members who also want to ask questions, so please
comply with that rule.
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me pick up with you, Mr. Bush. I think that each of you
gave some very, very important pieces of information and I
would like to take a moment to get your opinions on these. I
concur with you, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. I think
the key really is China and Russia being able to ascertain the
level of threat to their security on the part of North Korea,
and Mr. Bush, you talked about that, and I would like to get
your thoughts on the level of threat that you see now.
How can that be used, what is that threat that you
mentioned that China now, I believe you said, is beginning to
see from North Korea? How would you describe that threat?
Mr. Bush. I would describe it this way. North Korea's
having set a course on keeping its nuclear weapons raises
several security challenges for China. Number one, it doesn't
rule out the possibility that those missiles and nuclear
weapons could be pointed at China. Second, the United States
will enhance its security posture in East Asia to deal with
this tougher North Korean posture. Among the areas that I think
will be built up are missile defense, and that is a problem for
China because one of its major ways of projecting power are
ballistic missiles.
And third, there is China's concern that Japan and South
Korea will respond with nuclear programs of their own. I am not
sure that the possibilities of that are very high, but China
has to be worried about that. And so, in all of these ways,
China sees a more threatening security environment than it did
5 years ago, 10 years ago. Thank you.
Mr. Scott. So what do you see the Chinese doing to counter
that?
Mr. Bush. I think that, first of all, China will respond
slowly to major changes in its environment, so it will make up
its own mind over the next few months. I think that there is a
good chance that it will reduce and cut back on its
relationship with North Korea. I think that there is the
opportunity, incrementally, to bring them along to more robust
sanctions more seriously implemented. China is facing a big
test right now, how much they are willing to cooperate with the
sanctions that Resolution 1874 dictated.
We should keep in mind that China sees a domestic threat
from a collapsing North Korea, but I think it will be possible
to achieve a balance point between China's domestic concerns
and its concerns about regional security.
Mr. Scott. All right. I think one of you, I forget which
one, I think it might have been you, Ambassador Hubbard, but
one of you mentioned the possibility of an aggressive act from
North Korea toward Japan. Who was--Mr. Harrison. That intrigued
me. I would never have gone down that angle before. What gives
you that conclusion? How did you come to that conclusion?
Mr. Harrison. I did not say, sir, refer to an aggressive
act toward Japan. What I said was that if, as a result of the
attempts to implement the U.N. sanctions and forcing North
Korean ships into port using our influence to get countries to
let us board the ships, we end up in a cycle of escalation,
that I think North Korea's retaliation in this situation would
be to attack Japan or United States bases in Japan, not South
Korea. I think that the danger of a war on the peninsula is
small, but I think that if this implementation of the U.N.
sanctions leads to an escalation, the place where North Korea
would retaliate would be in Japan, and the reason--United
States bases in Japan, in all likelihood.
I think the reason is that, as I said in my testimony,
North Korea's feelings that all Koreans have with respect to
Japanese colonialism are much stronger these days in North
Korea, are more and more manifest in North Korea, than in South
Korea under its present leadership, and the nationalistic
younger generals who have come to the fore during recent months
in North Korea, which is why North Korea has hardened its
position on denuclearization saying that it would have to come
after the normalization of relations with the United States,
not before, those younger generals are very anti-Japanese, and
I have had indications on several of my recent visits to North
Korea, the last two really, that I can't go into detail about,
that when Kim Jong Il apologized to Prime Minister Koizumi in
2002, this was a very sensitive matter inside North Korea.
This was regarded as very unfortunate by many of the
nationalistic younger generals and other generals and others in
North Korea. Kim Jong Il found himself criticized in internal
meetings in North Korea, so Japan is the hot button issue, and
the Japanese failure to support, to provide the 200,000 tons of
oil that they were supposed to provide in the last phases of
the Six-Party Talks is one of the things that led to the
hardening of the North Korean position and the strengthening,
empowerment, if you will, of the hardliners in the leadership.
This is history. This is Japanese colonialism was the
biggest event in the history of Korea, and it impacts on the
present situation in many ways.
Mr. Scott. All right. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, for his----
Mr. Royce. Thank you.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Something happened to the clock here. I
think my good friend from Georgia had more than 5 minutes, so I
will extend an extra minute to the gentleman from California.
Let us make sure that this clock works now so that we don't
have complaints from the members.
Please, Mr. Royce.
Mr. Royce. No complaints, Mr. Chairman. I didn't pick the
panel and we don't have anybody from Treasury here. Treasury is
the entity that really was bullish about freezing the accounts.
It is interesting to me that there wasn't only mention from the
witnesses about the successful effort at Banco Delta Asia.
Banco Delta Asia, I think--and maybe it was just that because
Treasury didn't take kindly to counterfeiting of $100 bills,
but there is something about their enthusiasm there with which
they went at shutting down the hard currency. Sanctioning the
bank and cutting off the access to the regime, that is not
shared by a lot of people who look at the situation in North
Korea, or at least by our witnesses here.
My question is, why not follow the route that Treasury is
always trying to get the State Department to deploy? Why not go
with what they felt worked, why not cut off access to that hard
currency?
[Pause.]
Mr. Faleomavaega. I think it is to all of you members of
the panel, if you can give it a good shot there. The bottom
line, if I understand the gentleman's question, is very simple.
We have identified that North Korea is famous for producing
counterfeit money, and yet it seems that our Government doesn't
seem to want to touch that issue. To that extent, why do we
continue to allow North Korea to do this?
Mr. Harrison. I commend to you the very excellent series
based on a year of research that appeared in the McClatchy
newspapers casting great doubt on this assumption that
counterfeiting has been significant on the part of North Korea.
Mr. Royce. Mr. Harrison, I have read it, but I have also
talked with Treasury about it. They don't believe it. I have
been in Macau and I have seen the $100 bills that come in from
North Korea. I have seen the indication in terms of the effort
they went to, to purchasing the ink and the rest of it. There
is the fact that when we acted on it, we did get immediate
results, and that is the thing that interests me most.
We talk about getting Kim Jong Il back to the Six-Party
Talks. The only thing I ever saw that got him to the talks was
when we had his attention because he didn't have access to the
hard currency. All of a sudden it was look, just get the State
Department to lift this and I will be back at the talks. So I
can think of one thing that actually worked. I went along with
the 1994 framework agreement and I know your role in all of
that and I appreciate all of the good attempts to try to get
North Korea to the bargaining table. Yet every single time that
I have thought that things were going swimmingly, I come to
find afterwards that they are building a reactor in Syria. That
the Indians are forcing back a plane that is proliferating to
Iran.
Right in the middle of the talks we have had that kind of
duplicity. The only time we had their attention that I have
seen is when we took Treasury's advice and did what they
recommended and sanctioned those accounts and cut off the hard
currency.
Mr. Harrison. I don't think one can differ with you that
the financial sanctions, not just Banco Delta Asia, but more
importantly, the broader financial sanctions that we used
against North Korean access to the international banking system
undoubtedly had important effects and this is a very important
weapon, but it seems to me we have to keep our eye on the ball.
Capping the North Korean nuclear arsenal at its present level,
which I believe they are prepared to negotiate, is much better
than letting them go on enlarging it, and it seems to me that
is simple realism and----
Mr. Royce. I understand your argument about capping, but
let me ask you about this.
Mr. Harrison. So if we do go the route you are talking
about, they are simply going to enlarge their nuclear arsenal.
That is not in our interest.
Mr. Royce. Okay, so you say the goal should be to cap North
Korea's nuclear program at its existing level.
Mr. Harrison. That is just the short-term goal.
Mr. Royce. Right, but----
Mr. Harrison. The long-term goal has to be to establish
normal relations with them so that the present hardliners'
position of dominance is offset by what I think would be a
strengthened position with the many more moderate elements in
leadership there that are now on the defensive internally.
Mr. Royce. Given the past activity, what makes you think
the program could be capped? I would ask you this and
Ambassador Hubbard too in terms of capping. Given that that
would be dependent upon some kind of inspection regime, and
given the fact that North Korea resists any inspection regime,
wouldn't the thought that we were capping be a delusion?
Wouldn't we run the risk that the proliferation would still
continue to the Middle East or wherever else North Korea
decides to proliferate? We have got quite a record of their
engagement from Pakistan to Iran, to Syria. So that would be my
question on that assumption.
Mr. Harrison. For 8 years, sir, we had inspectors from both
the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency
carrying out their inspections as agreed in North Korea and we
kept North Korea from developing any nuclear capabilities
during those 8 years. I hope that Tom Hubbard would agree with
me that the North Koreans observed their commitments with
respect to inspections then.
Mr. Royce. Maybe in North Korea, but what about the reactor
that was being built in the middle of the Six-Party Talks in
Syria? Or do we question whether that was happening or not? It
seems to, to all of us on the panel, we believe that that
happened. The hard evidence we have seen indicates that that is
exactly what they were doing.
Mr. Bush. Congressman Royce, I think the record of North
Korean behavior over the last 6 months indicates that they are
not interested in a negotiated solution, whatever incentives we
offer. I said in my statement that I believe the Obama
administration will implement the sanctions in a robust way.
Those include financial sanctions, so I think your friends at
Treasury will have a lot to do.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the panel.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman.
The gentlelady from Texas, my good friend Ms. Jackson Lee,
for her questions.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, let me thank you very much
for convening, along with our Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade, this very crucial, vital and
hopefully productive hearing. I would like to start by pleading
and demanding for the release of two political prisoners, Mr.
Lee and Ms. Ling. These are not the words of her family
members, who have been gracious and respectful of this process
and have been great Americans, but I think it is time now for
those of us who have attempted to walk on eggs to call the
abuse of process, the ludicrousness of the indictment or the
offenses, what they are, ridiculous, outrageous, and clearly
not a part of the community of world nations.
North Korea should be called what it is, shameful. Ms. Ling
and Ms. Lee have no argument, no conflict with North Korea or
her people. If there was a violation in small measure of a
boundary line, we apologize. Her family has apologized. My
understanding is that Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling are not trained in
the technology of border lines. They happen not to be experts
on the fine points of a line drawn without presence and
visibility. So if any of the people of North Korea are
listening, then take mercy on individuals who are innocent and
release them now.
Soft talk and hesitant conversation is of no value, and I
believe that this is not an issue of war, but it is an issue of
strong, persistent demand that these two individuals, these
women and family members need to be released. I believe that we
should separate the two, and I want to pose my questions along
the lines; I saw, Mr. Harrison, that you had been in the region
in 1994 and had some previous negotiations on freezing nuclear
capacity. What happened there, please? What happened to those
preliminary agreements as I noted in your bio?
Mr. Harrison. Well, the conversations that I had in June
1994 led a week later to President Jimmy Carter's negotiating
what evolved into the so-called Agreed Framework of October
1994, and for 8 years, North Korea's nuclear weapons program
was suspended.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So what happened, sir? Why are we where we
are today?
Mr. Harrison. Well, we are where we are today because the
Bush administration didn't like that agreement, felt that it
was too soft on North Korea, that it involved giving things to
North Korea in return for its suspension of its nuclear
program----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, we had a gap over that period of
time in the Bush administration.
Mr. Harrison. What do you say?
Ms. Jackson Lee. We had a gap, we had a sort of missing
activity----
Mr. Harrison. No, the Bush administration abrogated the
agreement of 1994 and created the present crisis we are in by
doing so.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And so your instructions for going forward
today are, alongside of the two political prisoners that are
there, what are your instructions for us now?
Mr. Harrison. Well, at the beginning of my testimony, in
case you missed it, I urged that Vice President Gore be
encouraged to go to North Korea by this administration, and
that they cooperate with him in facilitating the visit and in
empowering him to carry on some meaningful discussions while he
is there. You----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr.--my time is short. I thank
you, and I did hear that. I just wanted to make sure that was
it.
Mr. Bush, do you think that structure would work, and what
do we do with China and Japan? I heard the testimony of I think
Mr. Harrison mentioning, someone mentioned that Japan did not
follow through on its commitment dealing with energy resources.
We seem to have this constant breaking of promises. I am
concerned, one, about where we are, but two, that we have the
North Korean people who live in starvation and then the idea of
trying to address this world crisis.
Do we need to now immediately send an envoy, and what do we
do about Japan's inertia and China's inertia?
Mr. Bush. Congresswoman, I would note that Ambassador Tom
Hubbard has some experience himself in getting people out of
North Korea, so he might shed some light.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you for that, and if the chairman
indulges me, I would like him to answer. Thank you.
Mr. Bush. I would not have former Vice President Gore go
unless it was absolutely certain that the young women were
going to be released. To send him out without clarity on that
point would put the United States in a very bad position. As I
suggested previously to Congressman Scott, I think that working
with China will be an incremental process as they understand
more clearly the threat that North Korea poses to them and the
need to take action to deal with it.
Japan, as we have indicated, has its own concerns, but the
administration is working very closely with Japan and with
South Korea to have a united front against North Korea. So I am
hopeful that whatever problems may have existed in the past can
be dissolved in the future.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do we send anyone to the region? Maybe
they can go to Japan, maybe they can go to China? We have
people going to the region?
Mr. Bush. We had the President's Special Representative on
North Korea in the region in February. It was made clear that
he was willing to go to Pyongyang, but not under the threat of
a missile launch, and the North Koreans spurned the offer. We
had diplomats in the region not too long ago. I think the main
problem is that North Korea is taking a hard line on the women
as it is taking on just about every other issue.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Can Ambassador Hubbard, can you quickly
answer that last question that Mr. Bush thought you might be
able to contribute to regarding the ladies and their posture at
this point?
Ambassador Hubbard. If the chairman will indulge me about 1
minute for a little history, in 1994, one of our U.S. military
helicopters with two American warrant officers on board strayed
accidentally into North Korea and was shot down by the North
Korean military. One of the warrant officers was killed in the
air. The other was taken captive by the North Koreans, and it
so happened that former Congressman Bill Richardson was flying
from Beijing to Pyongyang even at that moment, and for a week
or so he worked on trying to gain the release of the remains of
the dead one and the live prisoner.
He succeeded in getting the remains, but by the time he
left, he had not succeeded in persuading the North Koreans to
give up the captive, so I was suddenly, the North Koreans,
through their office in New York, suddenly asked if we would
send a senior envoy to North Korea and they thought they could
arrange the release if we did so, and so I was chosen as that
envoy. I went on very short notice into North Korea, and
successfully within 48 hours got the young warrant officer out.
I think there were several keys to our ability to do that.
One was our willingness to send an envoy. I was the first
senior U.S. Government official ever to be sent as an envoy to
North Korea. Two, I went with some facts, that I was able to
explain how this happened and what the equipment they had on
board was. Three, I was willing to express regrets that our
helicopter had accidentally strayed into North Korean
territory. We recognized their sovereignty in that way, and I
think finally I was able to make the point to them that we had
just signed this Agreed Framework, this nuclear agreement, and
that they wanted a close relationship with the United States,
you know, taking this military person prisoner was equivalent
to a hostage situation and that was incompatible with a close
relationship with the United States.
I think that argument worked then because, as I said in my
testimony, the North Koreans then wanted a close relationship
with the United States. I am not sure that same logic would
prevail now, given what we have seen recently, but I do think
some of the other elements are appropriate. I do think we
should send an envoy. I think we should keep this completely
separate from the ongoing nuclear talks, as I did in 1994, and
of course, we should be willing to express our regrets and
apologies, which the families have already done.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentlelady for----
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman for his indulgence,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega [continuing]. Her questions and certainly
join her, and I am sure that this is also the sentiment of the
members of this committee, as well as the members of the House,
concerning the safety and welfare of Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling, and
I sincerely hope that we will find a solution or a method or
some way to negotiate with the officials from North Korea and
find a way we can get them back.
The gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, for his line of
questions.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was at a meeting
not too long ago where a very high level food person from the
U.N. was there and she made the statement that the North
Koreans were about 10 inches shorter than they should be
because of malnutrition. I was with another individual that is
very familiar with North Korea that said that currently in some
areas, they actually practice cannibalism, that you have
problems burying your loved ones for fear that somebody is
going to dig them up and eat them.
I guess in dealing with a regime like this and trying to
use the same value systems trying to negotiate in good faith,
it really does seem very, very difficult and I think some of
the solutions that I have heard in the past in hearing, again,
you know, it is not like we are dealing with rational people.
Mr. Harrison, your critique of the fact that we are in the
situation that we are here with our present problems based on
the Bush administration I really think is simplistic at best.
I think there are a tremendous amount of factors going on,
and again, to blow it off that way, like I say, is simplistic.
Can you all comment in that regard, as far as the fact that we
have got a situation where we have got a leadership that is
willing to put their people through this, and then again, to
try and negotiate with a regime like this, how do you do that?
How do you do it in good faith and really know at all how they
are thinking, how they are going to react, or whatever?
I know it is a very broad question, but----
[Pause.]
Mr. Harrison. Are you addressing me, sir?
Mr. Boozman. I am addressing anybody that wants to comment.
Mr. Harrison. I just want to ask you whether you
acknowledge that from October 1994 until December 2002, we did
succeed in suspending North Korea's production of fissile
material and we did not have the situation that we have now. I
think it would certainly be simplistic to say that there aren't
other factors that contributed to the immediate situation we
face right now. Certainly the altered internal balance of
forces in North Korea in which hard-line generals have become
much more powerful since the illness of Kim Jong Il is
certainly, in my view, the main reason for the immediate
tactics that North Korea has been pursuing lately, but I don't
think it is simplistic to say that the abrogation of the Agreed
Framework which had suspended nuclear weapons production for 8
years is what set in motion the train of events that has taken
us to where we are today.
Mr. Boozman. I would say that, again, the people, getting
in a situation where they are 10 inches shorter, all of the
things that have gone on in that regard have not just all of a
sudden happened over the last 8 years. The North Koreans'
willingness to share their nuclear secrets has not just
happened over the last 8 years. I just don't believe that. Does
anybody else want to comment? The other thing too is, at this
point, at what point does it become, and I say this not, again,
this is such a huge problem.
I mean, this is not a partisan issue. This is something
that all of us need to worry about on almost an hourly basis.
This is a huge problem, but we do have a new administration
now, and I support their efforts in North Korea, and I don't
see that things are changing very rapidly right now, although
my hope and prayer and my efforts are that we need to work
together to get this done, and I just, again, I don't mean to
be picking on you, but I just don't see that those kind of
comments and that kind of blame is helpful.
Do any of the rest of you all want to comment on the----
Mr. Snyder. Mr. Chairman, let me take a stab at this. I
don't know of any U.S. Government official who has gone to
negotiations with North Korea thinking that it was going to be
based on good faith, and I think that the prior record further
underscores the folly of that position, but there are things
that can make negotiations more likely to be successful. One is
for them to be backed up by pressure. We haven't necessarily
done that in the past very well.
Another is to incorporate an element of irreversibility
into the process, and I think that that is a major focus of the
current administration. And then I just want to mention that a
final sticking point in this area is really related to the
challenge of verification, which the North Koreans have in many
cases defined as a threat to their sovereignty, and so I think
that that might actually be the biggest sticking point in terms
of moving forward successfully down a negotiation path.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your testimony.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. I
have a question, maybe somewhat simplistic in my view, but I
want to raise the question, how do we go about in trying to
denuclearize North Korea when it is already a nuclear power? It
has six nuclear bombs in its possession. Have we demanded the
same of Pakistan, of India, or of other countries potentially
who possess nuclear weapons? So what is the basis of how we are
doing this?
We are telling North Korea, denuclearize, when they already
have nuclear bombs. I would like to ask Mr. Harrison, the fact
that you have been at this business for 58 years, and probably
one of the few people in the Washington establishment who has
visited North Korea personally 11 times, kind of gives me a
little basis of asking for your sense of understanding and
knowing the nature of how North Koreans, officials as well as
the people, act or react to the given situation that we are
faced with now.
Mr. Harrison. I think your comments are very well taken. It
seems to me that what is hard for Americans to accept, since we
think we are the good guys and other people are often the bad
guys, is that North Korea is afraid of us, and I don't know
that I--I mean, and I think that within North Korea, there are
different elements in the leadership, some of whom are more
rational in assessing whether we really are a threat to them or
not, but as their collectivity, the North Korean leadership and
the people believe that they are threatened by the American
nuclear weapons that surround them in the Pacific, and the fact
that we took out our tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea
hasn't ended that perception.
So what you get, I think, when you go there that you can't
get if you don't go there a lot is the fact that this is real,
this is not a contrived posture, and therefore, they have moved
steadily, as the nationalistic younger generals, I have
emphasized, have moved into more powerful positions internally,
into the belief that they have to have a nuclear weapons
capability and therefore I think you are right, we face that as
a fact now.
But at the same time, they haven't ruled out that if they
come to feel, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, that we are
not a threat to them, that we have moved into normal relations,
and I might add to the gentleman from Arkansas, use those
normal relations--I think he has left me, but--to open up the
regime so that the things he has talked about are diminished by
the winds of freedom blowing in there, I think that, you know,
arms control agreements in which they phase out their nuclear
weapons, if we are prepared to give up the right of nuclear
first use, which we won't give up, if we are prepared to carry
out Article Three Section One of the Agreed Framework, in
conjunction with denuclearization--I don't think it is an
impossible dream, but you are right. We face the fact right
now. We have got to live with that, and that is why I think
capping is the real security objective of the United States.
Five nuclear weapons is much better than 50.
Mr. Faleomavaega. There seems to be a disconnect here. The
fact that for the 8-year period when we had that framework
agreement from 1994, and of course, the commitment, or at least
the allegation that was made by the Bush administration was
that North Korea cheated, and I wanted to ask the members of
the panel, did they really? I seem to get different answers at
this point, and the same reason why in 2007, I think, North
Korea made its commitments and then we moved the goalposts by
saying, well, you have got to verify.
And I just am curious if we could have been wrong on both
sides on how this whole negotiation came about.
Mr. Hubbard?
Ambassador Hubbard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Deputy
Negotiator of that 1994 agreement, I think I perhaps know the
agreement as well as anybody in the room, and I do think it was
a good agreement, the best we could get at the time. It indeed
did impose a verified freeze on the North Korean production of
plutonium and fissile material through that method for 8 years,
and I think it was a substantial achievement. What it didn't
adequately cover, did not give us the ability to verify whether
they were working on other nuclear programs somewhere else, and
that is where the suspicion that they were working on----
Mr. Faleomavaega. But for which they perfectly had the
right to do so, because it was not part of the agreement.
Ambassador Hubbard. That is one of the reasons I wanted to
speak up before my colleague, Mr. Harrison, did. The agreement
actually explicitly covered uranium enrichment activity through
its reference to the North-South denuclearization agreement of
1992, in which the two Koreas forswore any intention to carry
out uranium enrichment, and the North Koreans acknowledged that
during the negotiations, so I feel very firmly that they did
cheat.
Now, whether that element of cheating was worth throwing
out the whole agreement, throwing out the baby with the bath
water, as the Bush administration did, is another matter, but
getting back to where we started on this, I think we have, Mr.
Chairman, we have tried a freeze, and we managed to impose that
on the plutonium program. Later we tried disablement through
the Six-Party Talks and, you know, that disablement proved to
be much more short-lived than we hoped and did not carry with
it the kind of verification we wanted.
Now, Mr. Harrison and others are talking about a cap, and
it seems to me that is just a progression. Freeze, disablement,
cap, it is not really valid unless you have the kind of
verification that the North Koreans are very loathe to provide,
and that is the core of the problem that we----
Mr. Faleomavaega. I am sorry. My time is up. I am going to
wait for the second round.
The gentleman from California, chairman of our Subcommittee
on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade?
Mr. Sherman. I would point out that obviously it would be
preferable not to incorporate by reference when you are dealing
with negotiating with North Korea the State Department's modus
operandi is to conclude vague agreements and then announce
success and then tell Congress they are doing a great job. I
would like to just get down to the economic realities of North
Korea, and I don't know which of you will have the answers to
this, but can any of you tell me, what is the total value of
North Korean exports in 2008, 2007, 2006?
Mr. Snyder. I believe it was in the $3.5-4 billion range,
$3-4 billion----
Mr. Sherman. And what is the total----
Mr. Snyder. That is total trade, I am sorry.
Mr. Sherman. That is total in and out, or just out?
Mr. Snyder. Yeah, in and out.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. So, does anybody know the value of the
exports?
Mr. Snyder. It is about $1.5 billion.
Mr. Sherman. $1.5 billion, but for some reason the rest of
the world sends, just in trade, more than $1.5 billion. Is that
because people loan money to North Korea? I thought the
subprime thing was a scam, but who is loaning money to North
Korea?
Mr. Snyder. In particular in the China-DPRK economic
relationship, there is a structural deficit----
Mr. Sherman. Okay, so we have the structural deficit that
means loans from----
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Mr. Sherman. Of course, they do that for us as well. So one
way in which China subsidizes North Korea is to run a trade
deficit and to lend money to North Korea. What is the value of
the subsidies-free wheat, free oil that China gives each year?
Mr. Snyder. Aid figures from China to North Korea are not
publicly available. What Chinese scholars will say is that it
runs about two-fifths of their overall development assistance
to the rest of the world.
Mr. Sherman. So do the math for me.
Mr. Snyder. Well, the problem is that I don't know what the
overall figure is because it is classified by the Chinese.
Mr. Sherman. Well, what is the best U.S. estimate from the
four experts here as to what the number would be?
Mr. Snyder. I would say at least a few hundreds of millions
of dollars, at a minimum.
Mr. Sherman. Well, I would have hoped that people who focus
on these issues would ask the question, to what degree is North
Korea dependent upon the largesse of China? Do any of you have
a numerical answer to that, or--Mr. Bush?
Mr. Bush. I can give you a qualitative answer.
Mr. Sherman. Okay.
Mr. Bush. If China decided to impose a total trade,
investment and aid embargo, they would probably bring North
Korea down, but China has for years had a concern that if they
do that, it has an effect----
Mr. Sherman. Yeah, I am aware of that. They could threaten
to do it, they could hint to do it, or instead of bringing
North Korea down, they could make it a little more difficult
for the North Korean regime, put them in a position where they
didn't have quite so much resources in 2009 as 2008, but it
wasn't quite regime-threatening.
Mr. Bush. Well, in the current circumstance, they may. We
will see. I would reserve judgment on how China is going to
respond----
Mr. Sherman. But so far, they haven't, and nothing that
North Korea has done in the last 6 months should have been a
surprise to anybody in Beijing. They are just being North
Korea, and so the Chinese, when they sent the money in 2008,
they knew what they were getting in North Korea in 2009. Is
there anything North Korea has done that is a real shock to
China, or is there anything about Japanese or South Korean
reaction or American reaction that--is there anything that has
happened on this issue that would have been a shock if somebody
put it forward at a think tank in Beijing 12 months ago?
Mr. Bush. I think if you had said 12 months ago that North
Korea was going to test in April 2009 a missile and nuclear
weapon in May, the majority opinion would have been no, they
are not.
Mr. Sherman. Majority opinion, I mean, yes, but----
Mr. Bush. Well, no, I think that----
Mr. Sherman. But, I mean, they had already tested a nuclear
weapon, they had already tested missiles, so now they have got
a bigger nuclear test and a bigger missile. It is----
Mr. Bush. Well, as I suggested in my testimony, this has
led the Chinese Government and Chinese scholars and security
experts to come very recently to a different definition of the
situation.
Mr. Sherman. I----
Mr. Bush. I am reporting what I hear, Congressman, and I
think it is significant----
Mr. Sherman. Okay, yeah. I mean, what you are reporting is
that they would like America to just let the status quo
continue and so in order to do that, they will make a few
noises that will make us think that they are kind of moving,
while we have been playing this game for a decade.
I realize we have several people who are experts in China.
For many decades, it has been the United States that has
prevented Taiwan from developing a nuclear weapon while China
has carried out pro-proliferation policies in many parts of the
world. Does China just take it for granted that we will
continue to prevent Taiwan from developing a nuclear weapon?
Mr. Bush. I think China probably does. I think China also
believes that the current leadership in Taiwan would not see
nuclear weapons as a way to guarantee the island's fundamental
security.
Mr. Sherman. Yes, they are going to rely on American
taxpayers putting a huge fleet out there, which may be true
this decade, may not be true the decades to follow. Taiwan's
idea of assuring its independence is to have the American
military do it for them at our expense. I am not sure that
continues to work. What about Japan? Do you China genuinely
concerned that Japan will develop nuclear weapons as a direct
result of North Korea's actions?
Mr. Bush. Yes, I think there is some concern.
Mr. Sherman. Some concern?
Mr. Bush. Yes. No, I mean, I think----
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Harrison?
Mr. Harrison. Well, I just wanted to add something based--
contribute what I have heard in some very interesting
conversations in Pyongyang. They are very unhappy at the degree
of dependence that they have reluctantly had to incur on China,
letting them take out their best mineral resources by the
truckload, and that is why the more moderate elements there
have wanted to have a real relationship with the United States
and to normalize with the United States, to offset this
dependence on China.
I think we would be very naive in thinking that China is
going to help us in putting the squeeze on North Korea. China
wants to subsidize North Korea, wants----
Mr. Sherman. Well, let me just----
Mr. Harrison. Yeah, they want to make sure we don't have a
unified Korea in which we have bases.
Mr. Sherman. One final question, my time is about to
expire, or has expired, and that is, the last administration
refused to offer a nonaggression pact to North Korea. How
important is it to the North Koreans that they get an official,
conventional, old-style nonaggression pact from the United
States?
Mr. Harrison. They want nuclear assurances, not a
nonaggression pact. They want us to say that we will not use
nuclear weapons in a way that is binding upon us.
Mr. Sherman. The U.S. has already committed to that. You
would think we would put it in writing a second time, having
already put it in writing a first time. I am shocked that we--
--
Mr. Harrison. Well, no, they don't think that relates to
them.
Mr. Sherman. I am happy to send them a copy of our
declaration with a new signature, but then again, they don't
want my signature.
I yield back.
Mr. Faleomavaega. One of the ironies I wanted to raise with
the gentleman that I do recognize.
We have another distinguished member of our committee here
with us, Mr. McMahon from New York. We will give you your 5
minutes to----
Mr. McMahon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Sure.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you for holding jointly this very
important committee meeting----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Just one note before Mr. McMahon makes
his statement--the irony of this thing about written
affirmations. I believe it is reasonable to suggest that North
Korea wants a written affirmation from the United States that
we will never use nuclear weapons against them. And one of the
ironies is that this is an effort on the part of President Lee
of South Korea who is seeking a written affirmation from us
that we would use nuclear weapons as a deterrence, or as an
umbrella, to protect South Korea's interests, so we have got a
little contradiction here in terms of what we are trying to do,
but just as a matter of note.
The gentleman from New York.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you, Chairman Faleomavaega, and again,
thank you for holding this hearing jointly with Chairman
Sherman on this very important topic. Gentlemen, one of the
great concerns, I think, and I don't know if this was touched
on earlier, is North Korea's nuclear collaboration with Iran
and Syria, and of course, that is completely unacceptable and
raises this issue of nuclear proliferation. Could you touch on
the status of that and how much of a threat we see that as and
what America and the rest of its allies should be doing?
Mr. Snyder. You know, that is a very serious issue and
clearly there needs to be as much attention as possible in the
intelligence community directed to trying to discover those
possible ties. There certainly have been rumors about them. It
seems to me that to a certain extent, China comes into focus
here simply because of its location, and under the U.N.
Security Council resolution, if air cargo suspected of
transporting that type of material is detected, then the
Chinese are supposed to be inspecting that cargo at this stage.
So this is going to be one of the areas where I think
China's really going to be put to the test in terms of their
seriousness related to implementation of the new resolution.
Mr. McMahon. But, I mean, how serious is it that--I know
that in Syria when the Israelis bombed there was--attacked a
site there, there seemed to be evidence that North Korea had
been very much involved with proliferation in that particular
site. Could you expound, I mean, how serious of a threat is
this, how wide or how active has the proliferation been, and
how much of a threat do you see this as to, certainly to
Israel, and to the rest of our allies in that area in the
Middle East and certainly in the rest of the world?
Ambassador Hubbard. Again, I am not, I have been out of
government some time so I can't really purport to be a real
expert on the subject, but I think in the case of Syria, you
know, the North Koreans were caught red-handed having built a
nuclear facility that looks very much like their nuclear
facility in Yongbyon. I don't think there were clear
indications, although again, I was out of government when this
happened, I think there were no signs of actual transfer of
fissile material, the material needed to make those plants
operate, but they built a plant.
I think the evidence of cooperation with Iran on nuclear
issues is somewhat less clear. It seems there may have been
some collaboration in both directions at different times on
different kinds of programs, but suffice it to say that I share
this administration's view that the threat of proliferation is
the single most dangerous part of this very dangerous problem,
and therefore, much of the U.N. resolution calling for
sanctions and other measures, interdiction and other measures,
is aimed directly at trying to stop the possibility of
proliferation.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield the remainder of my time.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you. I do have some more questions
I want to share--Mr. Harrison, you had made a comment, or maybe
I will preface my remarks by saying that I have been one of the
strongest supporters of former President Kim Dae-jung's
Sunshine Policy as it has been his aspiration and dream that
one day the Korean people will be reunited. For the record, I
would like to ask you gentlemen for your sense of expertise on
how Korea became divided the way it is now.
Who divided the Korean people like this? I talk to the
South Koreans, they do not like it, the fact that it has
separated millions of families. To this day, there is still a
lot of pain and suffering even among our Korean-American
community. I just wanted a sense of history for the record. Who
divided Korea the way that it is now?
Mr. Harrison. Well, as the Reverend Billy Graham said, and
I quoted him in my testimony, Korea was a victim of the Cold
War. Russia and the United States divided Korea for expedient
reasons at that time.
Mr. Faleomavaega. And by that division, do you think, is
there any relevance for the Sunshine Policy given the tensions
that now exist in the Korean Peninsula? Is that a dead issue?
Mr. Harrison. Well, it certainly isn't a dead issue. I
think one of the very most important reasons why the hardliners
in North Korea have become empowered in recent months is the
fact that the agreements made by Kim Dae-jung and his
successor, the late Roh Moo-hyun, regarding coexistence between
North and South Korea were repudiated when Lee Mung-bak became
the President, and a perception of North Korea is that the
elements in South Korea favoring unification through a collapse
of the North Korean regime are now dominant in the South, and
this has greatly strengthened the hardliners in North Korea and
it is a combination of that factor and the pressure tactics of
the new administration in Washington have empowered the
hardliners in North Korea.
So I think what Kim Dae-jung set in motion has to be, is in
fact what the two, North and South, have agreed on, and that is
why I suggested in my testimony that President Obama should
make clear that the United States supports the vision of a
confederation and eventual peaceful reunification in those two
summit agreements.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Ambassador Hubbard, you made the
statement that we must not recognize North Korea as a nuclear
power. Does that have the same sequence as to how Pakistan
becomes a nuclear power as well? Of course, we come right back
to the question of nonproliferation, and this question has been
asked how many times now? Why is it that the five permanent
members of the Security Council continue to have in their
possession a total of probably 10,000 nuclear weapons right
now, and the rest of the world cannot? Can you respond to that?
Ambassador Hubbard. Well, in fact, President Obama has
called for a world without nuclear weapons and repeated that
call yesterday in his joint press conference with President
Lee. Obviously, a lot of conditions have to be satisfied before
we can get to that world, but I do think the threat that North
Korea poses to the world through its nuclear programs, and for
that matter the threat that Iran poses the world, is quite a
different qualitative threat than what we see with the Indian
programs and the Pakistani programs.
I think we have some sense of whom those programs are aimed
at, and it starts right there in the individual protagonists.
In the case of North Korea, I think we have a very different
view of whom that program is aimed at, and it begins with us
and our closest allies in Northeast Asia and it also entails a
proliferation risk that we saw to a certain degree in the case
of Pakistan and have tried to put a stop to, but I think that
goes beyond that posed by some of these other countries.
So I think we should not accept North Korea as a nuclear
power, even capped. We may not achieve denuclearization for a
while, but I think it is very important to our allies in the
region and to our own security that we keep working at it
vigorously through both pressure and dialogue.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Snyder, you had given an indication
in your testimony concerning the Six-Party Talks in terms of
how great this idea has been to negotiate with North Korea, and
I am just curious, how is it that the Bush administration came
out in establishing the Six-Party Talks as the means to
negotiate with North Korea? The fact that now the Japanese are
demanding the abductees that the North Koreans had been to is
somewhat of a contradiction because it has nothing to do with
denuclearization of Korea.
One of the added problems too is the fact that when you
talk about abductions and kidnapping, the Japanese kidnapped
and abducted over 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, forced
them into prostitution, and they were raped and
institutionalized by the highest echelons of the Imperial Army
of Japan during World War II. So I am getting a little confused
here in terms that while Japan is making a demand for North
Korea to return these abductees, and has a very valid reason
for doing so, when you think about it, what Mr. Harrison said
earlier, there is still a lot of bitterness existing between
the Korean people and Japan after being a former colony of
Japan before and during World War II.
But I just wanted to ask, is there still relevance for the
Six-Party Talks the way it is--and I assume the Obama
administration is going to continue to take on that line,
because it seems to me that originally, North Korea just wanted
to negotiate with the United States to deal with the actual
issues, not bringing in China, Russia and Japan into the fold,
but I just wanted to ask your comment on that.
Mr. Snyder. Well, my own view on this is that it has become
clear that even if the United States were to make a bilateral
agreement with North Korea, it is not going to be sustainable
in terms of implementation in and of itself. Even the Agreed
Framework in 1994 required regional participation, and so I
think that what the Bush administration did was to, in this
case, adapt an idea that was consistent with the reality of the
need in the context of addressing this issue.
As I indicated in my testimony, I believe that at this
stage, one reason why the Six-Party Talks framework is really
critical is that it has become a symbol of commitment to
denuclearization, and so if the United States backs away from
that particular venue, Japan, South Korea, China, are all going
to take it as a symbol that the United States is accepting
North Korea as a nuclear state. I think that one difference
between North Korea and the other nuclear weapons states that
we have been talking about this morning is that the regional
security context makes the idea of North Korea as a nuclear
weapons state a game changer, as Richard Bush said in his
comments.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Bush? A quick response and I will
turn the time over to----
Mr. Bush. Yes, I think that part of the Japanese position
is related to a prior general commitment on Japan's part that
when denuclearization comes, Japan will provide large amounts
of aid in implicit compensation for its colonial rule. Given
the state of Japanese politics now, it might be very difficult
to get that aid package through the Diet if the abductee issue
was still outstanding, and so it may be a good thing that Japan
is pushing this.
As you say, it is not directly related to nuclear weapons,
but it is related to the larger package for solving the nuclear
problem.
Mr. Faleomavaega. We are joined this morning by my good
friend and former U.S. Ambassador to the Federated States of
Micronesia, my dear friend, Congresswoman from California, Ms.
Watson, for her questions.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for this
hearing. I am sorry I missed most of it, and so I would like to
throw a fundamental question out to you, and respond if you
will. We hear a lot about the Six-Party Talks. Do you believe
that North Korea will come to those talks and be a
participating member? Also, who has the biggest influence? Is
it China or is it Japan, and are they feeding them the weapons
and what is needed to start to nuclearize?
And then, the last thing I would like to know, apparently,
in yesterday's London Times, some believe that Kim Jong Il will
first ratchet tensions with the outside world upward to their
absolute limit, but then allow his son to take credit for
offering the concession that calms everything down, and the
article went on to say that the younger Kim will be then
presented as the man who saved North Korea from war with the
United States, and so can you comment on that, and seeing how
the world knows so little about the son, how do you respond to
the claim made in the Times article and what strategic steps do
you see us as the U.S. taking to build a relationship with the
younger Kim? So take a stab at it, anyone.
Mr. Bush. Congresswoman, the article you cite presents very
interesting speculation. As you probably know, we know actually
very little about what goes on in North Korea and the
motivations of the leaders, so it could be as valuable as any.
On the Six-Party Talks, it was my testimony that North Korea,
at least for the foreseeable future, has abandoned the basic
goal and premise of the Six-Party Talks. The goal is
denuclearization and the premise is that if we could provide
the right set of incentives to North Korea, that it would give
up its nuclear weapons.
I don't think that that premise exists anymore. That will
be the case until Kim Jong Il passes from the scene and a
succession arrangement is put in place or is established and
consolidated. That will continue to be the situation and the
Six-Party Talks will be in abeyance. That is too bad, but they
don't appear to want to negotiate their way out of this
situation.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Snyder?
Mr. Snyder. I think that one of the underlying assumptions
behind a Six-Party process is that this is an issue that is not
solely a United States responsibility, but that it is a
collective responsibility, and so it seems to me, I don't know
exactly when or how or whether the North Koreans will come back
to talks, but the necessity of regional cooperation on the
basis of the idea of that kind of collective responsibility, it
seems to me, is going to be absolutely critical in terms of
making progress in achieving the goal of a stable Korean
Peninsula and a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, and so that I
think is really the focus that we have to, you know, keep our
eye on.
Ms. Watson. Ambassador?
Ambassador Hubbard. Glad to see you again, Ambassador
Watson. I agree with what both of my colleagues have said. One,
I don't think the North Koreans are going to be prepared to
come back to Six-Party Talks anytime soon and that it may be
only after they have gone through this leadership transition
that they are prepared again to sit down in a Six-Party
framework. I do agree with Scott Snyder that it is very
important, however, that we keep the concept alive.
The North Koreans may have given up, at least for now, the
concept of denuclearization, which is the purpose of the Six-
Party Talks, but I don't think the other five parties in the
Six-Party Talks have given up that concept, and in part to keep
that concept alive and in addition, in order to keep
constructive cooperation going, I think the framework is very
important. We saw the Six-Party framework working very well at
the U.N. last week with the other five parties working very
closely with the other permanent members of the Security
Council to put together a very strong set of measures and I
think whether the five parties sit down together and meet as
five parties or whether we continue this kind of ad hoc
cooperation, bilaterally, trilaterally and other ways, I think
it is very important that we keep the Six-Party process alive.
Ms. Watson. It is my interpretation of what has been
happening in the last few weeks that they really are playing
us, and I do believe that Kim Jong Il is ill, and I do believe
he is getting ready to pass it on. He wants the power, he wants
the recognition, and as long as you continue to ignore us, we
are going to continue to get your attention, and I would hope
that we would not fall into thinking that we have to move
aggressively. I would hope that we would continue to push the
other parties, the other five parties, into trying to respond
to the threat of North Korea.
I met with the South Korean President yesterday, and I am
leading the Exchange sometime toward the end of the year. I am
trying to put it off as far as I can because I want to see the
fallout from all of this and what the U.N. is willing to do. I
don't want us to be pulled into any kind of aggressive action,
like we were pulled into Iraq. It is just really important that
we share this responsibility across the other five parties, and
so, if you have any insight as to what the White House is
feeling about all this, can you share it with us now?
Mr. Harrison. I welcome your plea for restraint. We just
should keep in mind that North Korea has had a basic change of
policy that is going to continue, whatever happens to Kim Jong
Il's health. It is a new consensus in a leadership in which the
balance of forces has shifted to hardliners being stronger than
they were before. That changes--from 1994 until January of this
year, North Korea was committed to the policy that it would
negotiate for denuclearization leading to normalization of
relations with the United States, which is their basic goal.
That is what they want.
They have changed their policy. We have got to face that
fact. Now their policy is they will not denuclearize until
after they have normalized relations with the United States, so
we are just talking into the air, losing sight of our real
security objectives if we talk about complete denuclearization
of North Korea as the immediate goal. The immediate goal has to
be to cap their nuclear arsenal so that it doesn't become
larger and larger with better and better warheads, and then
work for better relations with North Korea simultaneously, at
which time, we hope that that new atmosphere will lead to saner
leadership which is prepared to pursue again denuclearization.
The Six-Party Talks, as Scott Snyder said, have been very
valuable because we need the participation of some of the
regional powers. The problem with them is Japan has been trying
to torpedo them because Japan is led by right-wing elements who
don't share, who really are very happy to have North Korea as
something they can demonize to justify some of their own
attempts to militarize and to prepare for nuclear weapons.
Don't forget that when we talk about the consequences of all of
this leading to Japan going nuclear, that is all very true.
That is why we have all worked for a denuclearized North
Korea, but don't forget that Mr. Taro Aso, when he was Foreign
Minister said it was time for Japan to have a debate on whether
or not to have nuclear weapons, so the taboo that had existed
from Hiroshima has been repudiated by the present Prime
Minister of Japan. So I think that Japan's role in the Six-
Party Talks hasn't been helpful and that is the problem with
the Six-Party Talks, but certainly the multilateral
negotiations in which South Korea and China and Russia are
involved, and eventually hopefully Japan, should be our
ultimate goal, but it has got to start with bilateral
negotiations.
Ms. Watson. I couldn't agree with you more, and I am
thinking of the old adage that is used in the community. If you
call yourself a leader and no one is following you, you are
just a man out taking a walk. So I would hope that we would
never again without provocation go out there on our own. That
is why I mentioned the six parties, the other five parties. We
cannot do this unilaterally, and you just said that. We have
got to--we are not in their neighborhood, but we can probably
be reached over the water eventually, so what we want to do is
let those in the neighborhood know that that is their problem,
even if we are the focus, and I don't want them to lure us into
an action unilaterally.
That is my deepest concern. So whatever we can do, you
know, behind the other five parties, we should try it and we
should do everything in our power to make it work. Mr.
Harrison?
Mr. Harrison. I strongly agree with you and I hope you will
read my testimony in which I----
Ms. Watson. I will do that.
Mr. Harrison [continuing]. In which I say that we have to--
the danger of an escalation to a war now is growing all the
time, and we should recognize that and do something through an
unofficial emissary initially, and I have urged that Al Gore
should be encouraged to go by this administration, which he
hasn't been.
Ms. Watson. Well, he has got something that has really
given him a lot of prominence on the world scene, and his
screen power and climate change and so on. I wouldn't want to
get into this if I were him myself, but anyway, thank you so
much for your----
Mr. Harrison. He met Hillary Clinton on May 11, said he
wanted to go, so he does want to go.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much for your responses, and thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentlelady from California.
While we are talking about recommendations, Mr. Harrison, I was
thinking of Madeleine Albright as another potential person that
could be an envoy since she spent some time there and was
received by Kim Jong Il and his administration. She would have
a little understanding of what happened there.
I am going for the second round, and gentlemen, I really,
really appreciate your patience. My good friend, the gentlelady
from Texas has one or two more questions, just to round out our
discussion and dialogue this morning. So, Ms. Jackson Lee?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, you are very kind in your
indulgence and the positive aspect of listening, even though
members are having meetings in and out of this anteroom, is to
get a sort of a comprehensive perspective of the gentlemen who
are before us, and so I want to, first of all, just a moment of
personal privilege, want to acknowledge that Mr. Snyder went to
Rice, and that is in Houston, Texas, and so there is a bias
there, gentlemen. Forgive me for that. I hope you enjoyed your
stay at Rice University, and for your information, they may be
getting a medical school, so if you want to go back to school,
we welcome you as well.
Let me pose these questions to Mr. Snyder and Mr. Bush. Mr.
Bush, you were associated with the former chairman of this
committee, of whom I had the privilege as what I would call a
baby Member of Congress to be tutored by, Chairman Lee
Hamilton, and of course, being on Homeland Security worked
extensively with him on the 9-11 Commission. The first question
is, how much fear, how much accuracy is there in the fear and
apprehension of the present position of North Korea in terms of
a nuclear capacity.
Where are we? I know we are not on Armed Services, this is
not the Intelligence Committee, but give your best judgment as
to where you believe they are. That sort of sets the tone for
how we proceed. Then my second question is, to make it very
clear that I am also not advocating for war and advocating for
negotiation, among foreign affairs, an engagement, but comment
on the concept of six parties. Should we be open to modifying?
Should we call for a regional meeting of North Korea, Japan and
China, with South Korea as an advisor?
We know that their tensions are very high there. Should we
be open to modification, and I will have a subset so the
chairman will be accurate in my two questions, give me your
sense of how we divide the freeing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee to
where we are today. I believe that we should have an envoy. I
believe that the administration is committed and engaged and
involved. We are to work collaboratively. We don't want to tip
any iceberg or make a misstep, but we do have two incarcerated
persons right now, and so I would appreciate some guidance.
Whoever wants to go first. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
indulgence on these two questions.
Mr. Bush?
Mr. Bush. I will go ahead. With respect to where they are
on the nuclear weapons, they have tested two devices, each of
which has fairly low yield, lower than the bomb we dropped on
Hiroshima. Their delivery systems, the missiles, can fly
several thousand miles but not far enough to reach the United
States.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Not even Alaska?
Mr. Bush. Alaska, they are getting there. With respect to
the nuclear weapon, they have not yet, as far as anybody
believes, miniaturized their device to the extent that it can
be mated to a long-range ballistic missile. I think the general
estimate is that we are years away from the point at which they
could hit the United States with a nuclear weapon.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And I don't want to volley, but do you
think they want to hit somewhere else?
Mr. Bush. No, I think they see their main security
challenge as coming from the United States and they believe
that having a nuclear arsenal and a means to deliver it gives
them a deterrent that will make us think twice.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So we have time. The main threat is us,
they are years away, there is time.
Mr. Bush. There is some time. I share Mr. Harrison's view
that our allies are threatened by this looming capability if
they can miniaturize their weapon. South Korea faces a serious
conventional threat from a large number of artillery tubes that
are targeted on Seoul and other places. One danger right now is
that in this rather tense situation, someone could miscalculate
and the situation would spin out of control. I agree
wholeheartedly with Scott Snyder that the Six-Party Talks have
served a very useful purpose.
It is not fundamentally broke, so we shouldn't try and fix
it. The main issue is North Korea's commitment to the core goal
of the Six-Party Talks, and that is denuclearization. It
appears that, for now, North Korea is no longer interested in
trading its nuclear capability for a package of benefits. That
may change once we have a new leadership in North Korea. It may
not. So again, we have to play for time. The best outcome would
be that after the succession, the new leadership realizes that
the deal that is on the table in the Six-Party Talks
effectively is a good deal for them, and they reach that before
they are able to perfect their deterrent.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Any word on the young women
posture question?
Mr. Bush. I think that sending an envoy is a good idea. I
think Vice President Gore is too high. Former Congressman Bill
Richardson is very good at this, and he has relations with the
North Korean leaders. I would prefer that we have a strong
indication before they go that the young women are going to be
released and that the visit is to seal the deal, not to do the
deal.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Mr. Snyder?
Mr. Snyder. I agree with everything that Richard said,
especially about the state of the North Korea nuclear
development effort. I might add that I believe the Joint Chiefs
of Staff vice chairman testified on the Senate side yesterday
suggesting that it would take at least 3 years for the North
Koreans to be able to have a missile capacity that would reach
the United States. One possible permutation that I began to
explore briefly in my testimony that I think is worth continued
consideration is whether or not and under what circumstances
China might make a strategic shift in its posture, in such a
way that it would be possible for the United States and China
to have a dialogue about the future of the Peninsula.
My own view is that the Chinese aren't there yet and that
the signal that they will be there is when they come to see
North Korea as their problem, not our problem. With regards to
journalists, I think one of the critical questions that we
have, you know, been dancing around, but I want to just state
it explicitly, is who will the North Koreans accept as an
envoy? Are we talking about individuals that the North Koreans
feel that they would trust, or are there other individuals who
might be in a position to play that role?
In addition, I think Richard correctly suggested that if it
is going to have some association with an official arrangement,
then it is critical to have a signal in advance that the
journalists would be released, but maybe there might be some
individuals who could go on a completely unofficial basis, on a
volunteer basis, if you will, for whom that burden wouldn't be
present. It seems to me that it is worth also exploring those
possible avenues or channels of interaction with the North
Koreans as part of this process.
Ambassador Hubbard. Mr. Chairman, could I just add one
quick point on the issue of the two young women in North Korea?
I think what my earlier introduction perhaps failed to
emphasize the really crucial point that this is a humanitarian
problem. The North Koreans need to recognize that their image
in the world, you know, whatever their course vis-a-vis the
United States might be, will be terribly damaged if they don't
treat this in a humanitarian way, and I think the envoy
selected, and I have no particular choice in mind, but the
envoy selected should be someone who underscores the fact that
this is a humanitarian issue, this is not an issue of
government-to-government negotiations.
Mr. Bush. If I could just add to that, the envoy should be
under instructions to not talk about the nuclear issue, except
to repeat the administration talking points, and North Korea
should know that in advance.
Mr. Harrison. Well, I respectfully suggest that if we
pursue the strict separation of the fate of these two young
women from other issues in our relations, as my colleagues have
suggested, they are going to be in some form of detention in
North Korea for many, many years. These issues are connected.
We are living in the real world. We are not living in a think
tank world. These issues are connected. They are pawns in a
power game.
The only way to deal with the problem of their release and
to defuse these present tensions and to move toward bilateral
negotiations, which we have been talking about, is for the
administration to empower whoever goes to sound them out on a
number of possible ways of easing present tensions, and I do
feel that this policy of strict separation of these two issues
is completely unrealistic and is very callous, in my view. I
feel very deeply about the situation these two women face and I
think we have to recognize that this can't be separated from
the larger problems that we face.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, you have been enormously
gracious. We have gotten very important instruction from these
witnesses and this hearing has a broad sweep to it. It is
important and timely, and I just want to conclude my remarks by
saying I am going to put on my thinking cap and I would like to
work with you, Mr. Chairman. I think this committee can play an
important role of being an asset or an addition to the
deliberation on these two young women who I consider Americans
who are now held, and to work every effort to take what these
gentlemen have said, some have said separate it, some have said
dispatch quickly someone that will know what we are to benefit
from, but I hope that we will have the opportunity to pursue
this collaboratively and be an asset to the administration on
moving this forward, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Faleomavaega. And I thank the gentlelady for her
excellent questions and the responses that we have gotten from
our witnesses, varied as they may be, but I think it is
interesting. Again, I want to join the gentlelady on the
importance of Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling's status of being imprisoned
there in North Korea. I think they don't deserve this term of
imprisonment for 12 years just for stepping over the line. I
think this is something too that now we need to consider, if
the nuclear issue and the Six-Party Talks are more important
than the lives of these two ladies, and I appreciate Mr.
Harrison's comment on that.
I think you cannot separate the two, but that is my
opinion. I can understand Mr. Bush's concerns that these two
issues don't go together, but again, it is a matter of opinion
and bottom line. Gentleman, all that we have done is just show
even more how little we know about North Korea. We have made a
lot of guesses, we have made a lot of assumptions, because it
has really been basically guesswork, and I am looking forward
to going to North Korea in the future if they will ever let me
go to North Korea. But gentlemen you have been so kind and so
patient with your time and allowing the members of both of our
subcommittees to raise questions and concerns about the issues
that we are now confronted with as far as North Korea is
concerned.
If you have any additional materials, gentlemen, that you
want to submit for the record, we would welcome them. I am
going to open the record for 10 days, 10 additional days--I
think that will be helpful in making this record as complete as
possible. Without objections, I also have a statement of Mr.
Connolly from Virginia, his opening statement that will also be
made part of the record. Gentlemen, again, I thank you for
being here. I look forward to our next hearing, and again,
thank you for your helping us with this.
Thank you. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
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