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north korea expert, scholar and author for the sister, dr. sung-yoon lee. his bio is on the website, but i do want highlight that outside of his academic work research. chair dr. lee has been an expert witness for us congressional. hearings on north korea policy, including the otto warmbier versus dprk trial this evening. we have a unique opportunity to hear his insights about country that keeps us awake, continues to present challenging policy problems for the region and beyond and. as if that weren't difficult enough to try to the pathology of secretive kim that leads it joining dr. lee is our very own emma whitmyer easy society policy institute officer, program officer will interview dr. lee and then conduct a q&a

with the audience. emma was previously a fellow with the south korean ministry of foreign affairs. now we get the program underway, which is why you are here. i want to first thank dr. lee for taking time to speak here. we are delighted for this opportunity to host you for what we anticipate is going to be a very insightful conversation and. his book is available for purchase in baghdad, please. but just let me know. have them signed by dr. lee and i would also like to thank our members for your support to this program and all our programs here at asia society. i made possible, because of you and to you and if you are not a member or patron, we obviously this is the best day to become one. so please, you know, if you want to become a member, let us know by calling john and then i will help you with that because every member and patron are important

for us to continue this work that we have been doing for over 60 years. please visit, our website to find out more about our work is a sliding org. to become a member, subscribe to our newsletter and to get involved. and let me also invite you to our recent the current exhibition more than 50 years of new japan. we just opened this this just opened a few days ago. so i'm i want to make sure that, you know, you come back to visit our exhibition this is part of our year long existence you have japan programing at asia society and i would like to ask you to please make phone keep it in silence and we aim for a interactive session after. the conversation between am i and dr. lee. we have a mic for your questions. please raise your hands. this meeting on the record and even is being recorded and we'll upload the video on website. so thank you again for joining. please come back. please visit our museum with

that ama over to you everyone. welcome the asia society. delighted to you here this evening for this thought provoking conversation with dr. lee and his new book, the sister road north korea's kim yo jong most dangerous woman. as soon and you've mentioned my name is emma whitmyer and a program officer here at the asia policy institute. also, sanjeev mentioned we have many exciting programs and events taking place here at the asia society this fall, such as meiji modern, as well as a discussion between asia society policy institute's president danny russell and us ambassador to japan rahm emmanuel. on friday, october 20th. we hope you'll come back to check out these programs and if you're interested in more about culture, education and policy, please consider signing up for our newsletter. now on to our guest this evening. he is a fellow at the woodrow international center for

scholars and previously taught korean history at tufts university. he's written on of the korean peninsula for numerous including the new york times, the wall street journal and the washington post. he's testified as expert witness at the us house of represented foreign affairs committee hearings on north policy and has advised senior leaders, including the president of the united states. please join me in welcoming dr. lee. thank you. thank you. thank you very much thank you to the asia society for this opportunity to share with you my leanings the north korean family with a focus kim yo jong and thank ladies and gentlemen everyone for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to be here this evening would you like me to address some what i deem to be some salient issues, some arguments that i try to make in the book? would you please do?

yeah. i'd like to know why you chose write this book on kim yo jong and what makes her to be so dangerous. well, you know, been sort of obsessed with this family regime over the last 20 years as a young graduate student, i knew little about north korea is kind of common among south korean citizens there is pervasive apathy indifference even to things north korean in south which is hard to explain. but that is unfortunately the case. and as i began to read up on the grotesque human rights violations going on inside north korea, just a few miles from where my family in south korea, lives as i understood as i came to learn about these political prisoner concentration camps. i a bit embarrassed that i knew so little about these ongoing crimes against humanity. so that was the portal for human

rights issues for me to study about korea. and of course the regime plays the key role in perpetuating this kind of misery, hunger and oppression. kim yo jong, to me is especially interesting because she is the first preeminent, powerful full leader of the family, clan of the royal house to hold real in public and to serve as the deputy, the dear supreme to her brother. she has issued over 40 formal written statements since onset of covid since early march 20, 20, under her name, it is very clear that she is the show her nation's toward the united south korea and much of world she says so herself. she says that by authority vested in her by comrade chairman, her brother, by the

party, the workers party of korea and by the state, i shall henceforth pursue the following steps. and this was in june 2020. and she warned that this quote useless the north south liaison power inside north korean territory built entirely and maintained entirely with. south korean funds will soon be gone. she warned that it that warning in a written statement on june 13th, 2020 and three days later demolished it was earlier in the month in the same month on june 4th at about 6:15 a.m., kim yo jong issued a written statement calling on south korea to pass a new law criminalizing dissent of anti dprk north korean regime leaflets and just about anything else that many north korean emigres former defectors turned

out archivists do, sending in to korea not only leaflets denouncing regime, but also basic like a pair of socks a bar of soap, $1 bills, copies of the bible, you know, these two toothpaste tooth product things are in critical, short in north korea. the regime doesn't like that, of course. so she issued this order almost a decree calling on south korea to criminalize such activities by a new criminal law. amazingly, 4 hours later, the chief spokesman of the south korean ministry of unification called for an unscheduled press conference and said, we will work on it right away. and just one hour later, other government chimed in that. the defense ministry, the foreign ministry, the blue house, the presidential, arguing that sending leaflets brings all harm. good. we will pass such law and it was

passed so that vignette even just that that she was to extend southward across the border her nation brutal censorship. speaks to her standing her power her influence. this is something that her grandfather, kim il sung, the founder, could not achieve, nor for her father, kim jong, who died in 2011, who her brother kim jong un. but by virtue her identity, a young woman, relatively young, female deputy leader, she's able to get away a lot more than, say, invective coming from her, less photogenic, surly looking brother just because she's a young, pretty woman. she can get away with a lot. we are more prone to forgetting forgiving her potty mouth,

invective when she returns to a post provocation, peace when north korea calls for and smiling. you know, they embrace they shake hands with various world leaders. the next time we see that she will be the face our nation leading, her nation's diplomacy, and we will many of us, due to the pervasive to patronize young women, pervasive in men. i would also respectfully suggest some women, too. we will underestimate her, forgive her for all our sins rudeness and want, believe her and even want to, that she's malleable, that we have some control over. we can teach, or either this is a fallacy, a dangerous one or one. so she a major new weapon in her nation's diplomatic toolkit. thank you, dr. lee. i think, yes, kim kim yo jong

plays a very unique in your book. you describe her being very attentive and taking over responsibilities very much as an aide to her brother and holding ashtray for him at some points. but you also describe her as a mother like figure. and i wonder what the significance is of her being a woman plays and tells us about north korean leadership and she being taken seriously. yeah, we've seen or bring with alacrity a month long penned for her brother to sign various agreement and scarce books and so forth and she was caught on film on a 70 hour long train ride to vietnam in february 20, 19 for the second summit meeting with president trump at nighttime and the two siblings were caught on camera he was having a smoke he's a chain smoker and she was holding respectfully with both hands what looked to be a very expensive fancy crystal ashtray.

and many people saw that and said she's kind of served aisle to her brother. she's his secretary. there's element, too. but i see in the two siblings genuine affection and genuine trust. i've watched literally hundreds hours of north korean video documentaries and show scenes that you don't find in south korean or other people with documentary shown in other nations. the two seem to genuinely like each other. they often smile at each other, at each other during occasions of official events, they still glimpses of each other and then kind of smile like this as if to communicate. this day is going swimmingly know i think he really trusts her because she's capable and of course because she is her brother. i don't see anyone within the

family who for now and for the next foreseeable let's say 15 years is a viable candidate for top leadership. if kim jong un were to become incapacitated today or next year or even ten years from now, his children are very young, as we know, ten, 11, 12 or so people and what can a 12 year old son or daughter do until they reach maturity issue, written statement, give a public speech receive a foreign delegation leader nations delegation to south korea, to vietnam or china. i don't so so although north korea, we know is a brutally dominated, chauvinistic society and culture. i would say that keeping power within the family and having one of their own directors, cendant or kim jong un, kim jong it. and so one assumes the throne that supersedes any cultural,

political biases so for the next ten, maybe 15 years. i think she's only viable candidate to emerge as the supreme leader her gender notwithstanding. you touched on kim jong un's daughter, kim jae, or kim jong. and i'd like to know, as we're starting to see her come out into the press and taking more photos together with her father, is this kim jong way of showing a more human or fatherly figure, or is this symbolic of the future that he is trying to build in north korea? i think this is a leader mind trick like jedi, mind trick. you know, it's psychological manipulation of primarily the united states in project ing or soft or family man. i think kim un is saying

simultaneously, hello, our nukes are here to stay. my daughter, my will inherit my nukes when the time comes you whether it's biden or president yoon in seoul or any leader of a democracy, come and go via elections you will not stay here two or three years from now, you'll be gone. whereas i'm here to stay and turn power down to my next generation. there's that to sort of boasting, but i think the more important message is, you know, self humanization, projecting the image of a loving father. what does that achieve. well, by repetition. through repetition one day and a president in the white house come to say, well, it's really virtually impossible to roll their nuclear weapons program. and obviously he's a family man.

he loves his daughter. maybe he's not nuts. maybe he's not bonkers after all maybe we can learn to learn we can learn to live with north korean nuclear weapons. i think that kind of. that kind of adjustment, a new reality is what north korea wants to achieve by projecting this happy image. all father and daughter in the beginning of your book, you include the mount paektu family tree, which i think is a really great visual understanding how the different branches interact with each other. and i notice the inclusion of kim jong un's children. however, there is no inclusion of children kim yo jong is kim yo jong married. does she have a husband? does she have children? we don't know when she visited south korea for the opening ceremony of the winter olympics in 2018.

the next day she visited the blue house. the president's office and mingled with various south korean senior officials. of course, throughout her two night, three day stay, she reportedly told her south korean counterparts that she's, yes, married and has children and may even have said she was pregnant at that time due to deliver her next child sometime in the next couple of months or so. and internet sleuths around the world observed at the time that she looks a bit not really visibly very starkly different but you know maybe a bit a bulge around her midsection. and when she showed up again made a big high profile event. her brother's summit meeting with the south korean president in the inter-korean panmunjom on april 27th, 2018. she looked visibly thinner. so people believe that at some

point between early february and late april, she may have given birth to her second or third child. we don't know, but none of this can be confirmed. she turned six just a few days ago. so it's reasonable to assume she does have children and is married if she were to become supreme leader one day, what would happen for her next leader? would it be her children or would it go back to kim jong un's children? well, i think it's sort of human nature about once you emerge as the supreme leader, it's very hard to relinquish that kind of absolute power. north korea is an absolutist monarchy of the medieval age. you it's they pretend to be a democracy see where there's gender equality all those good things but it a brutal absolute monarchy.

and once you seize that kind of absolute power i think it's virtually impossible voluntarily give that power struggle. you know fratricide we've seen in the north korean family killing the step brother, killing a nephew in 1997 who defected to south korea upon the orders of jong il, kim jong il's nephew was killed. we've seen the uncle jang song peg in late 2013. so fracture his side, the party side of this side, i looked up these words in the dictionary killing of uncle and nephew and those things. it's a staple of the north korean way life. so what happens the future? will there be a power between the aunt and the niece? nephew? one cannot rule it out at that point. i guess the interesting fictional speculative storyline becomes who will strike first? will the having held real power

about to be relegated to role of a regent? an adviser will not remember. will she forget her harrowing experience in colluding with the brother to have the uncle that raffle nipping winter of 2013? i think memories will linger. we've seen a rekindled relationship. i would say between vladimir putin and kim jong un this year and. kim jong un recently traveled to vladivostok, russia for the far eastern summit. i don't believe we saw kim yo jong on this this trip actually, she was on the trip. she was. and she was seen wearing a very expensive back. i mean, the very rich know suits. it's an interesting, you know, thing to note. but they live like kings the nations poor, the are starving but the royal is super filthy

rich and quite large consumers of and luxury vehicles. yes yes. i'd like to know on this recent that kim jong un took how it differs from the one mentioned in your story so met with in the russian far east at a spacex rocket launch facility in mid september or september 12. it the first time that kim jong un traveled outside his country, his sister too since the onset of covid and last time he had traveled outside his country and held a summit meeting with the world leader was with putin in april 2019. that trip did not go very well for kim jong un because kim jong un was told on the day of his meeting with putin that putin had places to go next day that he would be flying down to beijing, china, for a very important international meeting.

the second belt and road conference. what's the problem there? well, had assumed that the next morning putin would join him in a wreath laying at of a veterans cemetery. but moreover, it's a breach of diplomatic protocol. if you have a foreign head state visiting you in your country you try your best, not leave that person hanging. and by you know this giving the signal that have people to meet places to go you're just a tourist have a nice time. normally you try to avoid that unpleasant situation. but not only putin did that leave his country while kim jong un was still in russia, but revealed it to kim at the very last minute. so how did kim take this? he and putin met for about 4 hours from about 2 p.m. to 6

p.m. and, you know, they had a banquet. alcohol was consumed of of course. and once kim once putin bid farewell it was still daylight day out light out. you know it was still not dark kim went to it went back to his and proceeded to drink by himself to all bottles of vodka. how do we know this? well, confidential. but you know, we have some technology. and she showed up to his first meeting the next morning, 2 hours and 40 minutes late. and then canceled everything. a visit to the zoo ballet in the evening and went home. so that was not a happy first summit meeting. whereas now situation, the world has changed with invasion of ukraine. now putin, it seems, needs kim as much as kim needs putin. it sounds like putin took a page out of the kim family playbook to, you know, leave them be in

off. well putin's notorious for up very late to important sometimes two or 3 hours late but was actually waiting standing there in april 2019 waiting for kim and his sister was not on that trip. and it may be linked the very unpleasant experience kim jong un had when donald trump just left kim there in hanoi, vietnam in late february and took off, got on jet air force one and flew back to the united states, thus making kim look, he had time on his hands. so that train ride back home from vietnam to north korea, 70 hours was not very pleasant. oh, i'm sure. in fact, kim had everyone except his sister punished physically during the train ride. but for whatever reason kim yo

jong did not attend the kim putin summit on april 25th, 2019, and kim looked disheveled. he was red in the face. he was breathing really hard, audibly. you could hear him in the documentaries, you know, heaving like this walking maybe about 50 yards or so. and as he out of his mercedes-benz sedan, his signature black mouse, it was all ruffled, you know, bent upward like this. his coattail revealing the broad contours of his backside and. no one, of course, on that retinue could have dared to put their on the great leader, especially in the vicinity of his derriere, and straighten things out, except for his sister. when he needed his sister, she was not there. but on this recent summit, kim and putin looked happy like. they need each other, you know, we're buddies now. so kim needs from putin, high

tech military technology, satellite, rocket technology. and so and putin needs from kim conventional weapons, artillery shells, which north korea has in plentiful supply. so according to a report yesterday, i think cbs north korea has supplying russia with artillery in a methodical way. recently back to camilla jong's leadership abilities, really seen that she's capable of stepping up and taking the role of bad cop. and in your book, you provide an example of when former president bill clinton traveled to north korea for the release of journalist laura ling and euna lee and kim yo jong being not only to manage the delegation going right up to doug band, to collect something, i won't say what you'll have to read the book to find out.

but i'm so interested in this situation that you lay out for us. are there any other instances that you tell the audience of where she plays bad cop? yes. so the term good cop bad in 2018, i suppose we say she played that role. the role, the good cop, the happy, charming face of her brutish nation by showing up in pyongyang and by meeting with various next to her brother. and then again, since the onset of covid, she's played, there's been a clever role reversal. she's played the role of the even worse cop to the bad cop that is her brother. so in that june 13 statement when she adam berated the blowing up all tower built by with south korean funds, she also said, i will soon deploy

our troops into the border region, thus coming across as threatening take military action, she said. had the authority authority to move troops. that's quite a statement and people were quite nervous at the time and about ten days later kim jong un convened the meeting and announced to the world, we will suspend that plan to deploy troops. thus coming across as the saner more restrained party to wild sister tour to his twisted sister. so it's a very clever role reversal because they will revert they will revert to their original roles kim jong un the bad cop kim yo jong the good cop. at some point and again she'll come out beaming smiles and call for talks. and it will be very difficult, i think next to impossible for any us administration or south korean administration to turn

their back on her and say we are not interested, peace leading into hostage diplomacy. last friday we that us private travis was going to be released to the officials. private king had previously been detained by north korean officials after starting across the dmz earlier this summer. it seems like in the past north korea has shown much more willingness to engage with former and present us leadership. would you say that you were that they didn't leverage this more? thank you. and i'll try to link that to your comment question on bill clinton's visit to north korea, which i neglected to do. pardon me. so travis king, private second class, you know, low ranked us army soldier who had been in trouble with the law. he he did. he served time south korea for vandalism and assault for

violence he was to be flown back the united states in july and faced some further action by the dod and as i said he posed as a tourist on a visit to the border he learned some of his to the village july 18 border into korea he probably regret about his reasons. maria do. example, internal. worked for a studio in part owned by al gore.

the two women and two other colleagues were filming along the border in north korea documentary for those suffering person north korea were chasing after them from a a they run awy to the chinese side, they ran faster but recently was beaten with rifle anyway, so the two were sentenced to years of hard labor or activities and his former aide in thet- white house

and i spoke with him about three hours about thisfr episode hollywood mobile into north korea of kim jong un's request that no one else from and then release the u.s. detainees at the time, i will say what but she was there young but a hot summer dayay and august, 2019 wn the plane touched down she was there came straight truly ignoring the more famous celebrity and said give it to me now. want to see the detainees first and show they are in good health and the banquet should sort of

managing, issuing orders, directing traffic and was a participant in the data collection sit at the head table her father but the americans knew who she was. ... the americans were also interested in the health condition of kim jong il because the previous summer he had suffered kim jong il, the father had suffered a massive stroke and experts said probably he'll be gone within the next five years. and indeed, kim jong il and experts said probably he will be gone within the next fiveis years. and indeed he died in 2011. so this was a rescue mission but the americann delegation also is interested in gaining some intelligence or information but then was struck by her attitude. all this is, no hello, no niceties, just give it to me now. >> i'm glad you mentioned the south korean law in 2020 that

criminalizes topic into leaflets at the dmz. my understanding that this has been taken backco recently. >> the constitution court south korea sounded unconstitutional. so it's not going to be repealed anytime soon but not really enforced. >> okay. so what kind, dccc resumption of material being sent back over to north korea and what kind of information do you think will be included? >> there are about 34,000 north koreans held have resettled in south korea you're all of course many are activists. some are more outspoken and if it more vigorous in their promotion, self-promotion. some announced the time, date, location the balloon launched which is north korea of course information, pretext to cause

trouble. there has that been any casualties. there's not been a skirmish the north and the south shooting at each other or at the activists pick on october 10, 2014, there was an incident, a human rights group in south korea led by a former north korean did launch balloons and preannounced at around 6 a.m., and then a few hours later north koreans show protest. they fired into the vicinity of the launch site. no one was there. the balloons were long gone by the did fire rounds into that launch site in south korea, which wasel concerning of cours. and then a couple of hours later the south koreans felt they had to protest as well. so they phone north korea, we are going to shoot some rounds, so don't be there. and then did sort of a protest. the previous south korean government blew that episode up again worrisome, as if we came to the brink of war.

therefore, these balloons are very dangerous, they could cause damage to even human lives and property for people living near the border. of course, no one would relish like people do such activities in your own backyard so that's understandable. but my point is all this has been blown up into somethingwe that was very, very dangerous to south korean lives as well as north koreans. well, the human right, the right to receive in part, share information, is a universal human right. it's enshrined in article 19 of the u.n. universal declaration of human rights, and the drafters in the 1940s were very prescient. they said that to receive and disinformation is a universal human right, regardless of the medium and regardless of holders

pixel transnational, country to country sending leaflets is a basic right for the people of north korea and for people sending, sharing such information. yet just because kim yo jong called for this gag law as calling by the senior britishne parliamentarian lowered david alton, just because said pass a new law and cities people to jail, south korea was compliant, which i thought was a very unfortunate development and many u.n. agencies, watchdogs, and ngos all over the world harshly criticized south korea's action at the time, but that's how it played. you know, she issued an order come south korea complies in the name of peace. >> your comedy of errors chapter, you expressed what i perceived too be a healthy amout of skepticism leading into each of the summits between kim jong-un's pity you think so?

just a little bit? >> between kim jong-un informer president trump as well as kim jong-un informer south korean president moon jae-in. but it also appears some of the abundance may be a little bit of amnesia about previous summits -- >> it will happen again. they will be collective amnesia the next time kim jong-un says let's meet. >> i wanted to if you can explain further why you are so skeptical and why singapore and hanoi summits were a disaster. >> it was all kind of preordained. many people say north korea is unpredictable. i think for the use mean is eccentric or unconventional. if there's a streak of unpredictability that there's an element of predictability in that unpredictable behavior. so by the f time the first inter-korean summit meeting that kim jong-un held within present mooching and of south korea in april 2018, i've seen this movie before. it was more like rambo four.

and byty rambo four give a prety good idea of how the movie is going to end. the first one was very good movie, first blood. anyway, so i answer skeptical of course. and critical because kim jong-un announced during his new year's speech, , new year's day speech and 2018 that is sending a delegation to the winter games in south korea and, of course, did send a sister. and when kim jong-un called for talks with president trump, a message that was brought physically by senior most south korean foreign policymakers to the white house on march 8 after having been wined and dined by none other than kim jong-un in pyongyang that monday on march 5, trump said on the spot, let's do it. the sooner the better. i knew that disaster was looming at the time. i was on life bbc radio program interview during the

inter-korean summit on april 27. s newspaper and were very cheerful and optimist. still feels different this time i think it's for real. and so one, i didn't say anything and the moderators said, what about you, mr. well, you know, i'm a bit skeptical. why are you so cynical? and i reply, well, when you've been repeatedly mobbed by the duo tag of reality and history, yeah, one grows a bit skeptical when i say ran before, i really it. we first saw this, the crazy looking north korean dictator coming out and coming across as not not crazy, but completely charming and superintelligent and informed. it was a 1972, the original leader, kim il-sung, reading the geopolitical shift in the sway of forces international environment with president nixon's to china in february

1972. that a lot of nations both china's dependent client states like north and north vietnam and america's dependent client states like taiwan, south korea, japan, are they going to abandon us? the fear of abandonment, you know, is a stock phrase in my field, but it's real. so what they can sung do, act belligerent? no in may 1972 that for the very first time, kim il sung received, reporters from the new york times, harrison salisbury and john lee salisbury was a very famous former moscow bureau chief, and jon lee was bureau chief in japan. the two were entertained by kim il sung, his office for 3 hours on may 26, 1972, one month later, cyrillic, harrison a reporter for the washington post was entertained by kim il sung. and then in july, a harvard law professor was received by kim il

sung and. all three delegations said kim this song is something like a visionary is a dictator. yes, but his rational is, well. and kim il sung pulled a new york times reporter's things that were very sweet like, you know, we have to maintain our anti-u.s. stance, you know, i have a constituent to please the brutal korean war. americans killed, a lot of people. so even i don't mean it entirely. we have to say and tell us things you know that south korean dictator, military man i'm open to meeting with him without preconditions. and of course, american forces, troops in south korea, they'll have to go eventually. but that doesn't to be a precondition for talks with the south korean leader. it sounds very reasonable and so on. rambo two was in 2000 when kim il, upon inheriting upon the death of his father.

in 1994 for the next six years never traveled his country, never received foreign dignitary and he showed up in beijing in may 2000. why? because had an all important the first ever inter-korean in june. the south korean president kim dae jung was to visit. and then in july kim jong il hosted a man called vladimir putin. that is the first and to date the only time a top russian or soviet leader ever visited north korea and putin, i think will repeat that and visit again soon. and then what did kim jong il do? stop there? no. he sent a special envoy to president clinton in october 2000 and vice marshal chaw taumalolo came with a big envelope carrying a nice cordial invitation letter for president clinton to visit. clinton was very interested, and 12 days later, secretary of

state madeleine albright was in pyongyang toasting kim jong il. and she actually reported to her boss, president clinton, that, yeah, you should make the trip. and he was going to except for the vote recount, florida vote recount following the election on november 7th between al gore and george w bush. and gore did not concede until mid-december, december 13th. so time simply ran out for clinton to make that trip before stepping down in january of the following year. but kim jong un, what did you do? undeterred, in january, he visited china and visited all special of the major. so special economic zone cities like shanghai, zhuhai, shenzhen. he hawaii, you know tech company repeating what deng xiaoping the first asian dictator turned reformer had ten years nine

years before in the early 1980s, leading his nation on a path toward gradual opening and reform. and then he took the train to moscow and met with putin in august. in 2000, one received the japanese prime in september 2000, two and saw one. so kim jong and rambo three were on before hawaii. kim jong un. what did you do. for the first six years? never met with worldly leader except for dennis rodman, former great basketball player, never traveled outside his country. then he popped up in beijing in. march 2018. why? because he had an important inter-korean summit coming up next month and then, as we know, the rest is history. met with trump, met with xi jinping several times. his made four visits to china. the last was in on his birthday in january 2019. so there's another china visit coming, i would say.

and she visited kim jong un in june 2000, 19. so there's a strategy to all this. north korea doesn't go berserk and asks for war or nuclear war. they go this ladder of graduated escalation and then they know when to dial it down, back it down and just come down the ladder and revert to a very exciting pose provocation. peace ploy. and they'll do it again. i don't know when, maybe next year, maybe two years from now. but i see kim yo jong playing a central role in the next post peace phase. dr. lee, you've been an advocate for tougher sanctions on north korea. i'd like to know how the united states or organizations like the un take a tougher stance against north korea's military provocations, as well as their illicit cyber activities. well, sanctions like domestic

law enforcement, is very hard work, laborious, labor intensive. you have to do the investigation, surveillance, build up your case, take it to the courts, and then you have to monitor and enforce the law like. domestic law enforcement, even the toughest laws on the books. if the police or the fbi or the law enforcement folks not enforcing the law, it's kind of meaningless. and that kind of law enforcement needs to be maintained. of course, you can't just do it for a year and then go, we've never had tough, meaningful sanctions against north korea ever in 17. it did get tough, but it lasted for about a year and then with the charm offensive by the kims in 2018, it just fell apart most nations of the world most u.n. member states don't have a dog in this fight. they don't care. and, of course, with putin's invasion of ukraine, we can't

even pass a condemnation, a tough worded resolution, the un security council, because russia and china have been actively blocking any such attempt to denounce north korea, although north fired way more than hundred ballistic missiles since january 20, 22 and numerous in the continent. ballistic missiles nothing's ever done so i think, you know, dwelling the mistakes of the past, this kind of miserable and not all that helpful but. just to give you one example during the obama administration, there was really sanctions against sanctions enforcement against iran for violating us laws, laws on iran and, iraq and sudan and some other countries. the obama administration vigorously enforced sanctions and imposed fines in the hundreds, millions of dollars on

major international, mostly in allied, a whopping. 8.9 billion on the fourth largest bank in the world, the biggest in france. bnp paribas. how they pay, why? because otherwise you'll blocked out of the us dollar system. that's a death knell for a major corporate or bank over 600 million on standard chartered over 600 million fine on in. 1.9 billion on commerce bank deutsche about bank was fined 1.4 billion. tokyo mitsubishi bank of tokyo mitsubishi 315 million. anyway so all these banks friendly nations mostly they pay, they comply with respect to north korea violations. it's mostly the chinese banks which are some of the biggest in, the world agricultural bank construction bank, bank of china

and so on. there has never been any attempt by, any administration, to penalize levy such fines with. knowledge of china's serial violation of, un laws and u.n. security council resolutions. is it too late? try to do that. i don't know. i'm growing pessimistic again. if there is ever an attempt to enforce sanctions against north korea by penalizing north partners, then the point is such efforts need to be maintained over time. but again, leaders in democracies face limits. they want an agreement carve a legacy, have a flashy more than doing the hard work over time. it's a strategic disadvantage for the united states and a strategic advantage for the north korean in perpetuity. next year, the united states will be having a presidential

election. what are you most concerned about for that outcome and what are you most hopeful for. let me sort of try to be a bit devious and deflect that question and imagine myself, jong un or kim yo jong in pyongyang, who do i want to be elected? i think donald trump, because well, the two men used to write love letters. and as president trump himself said, they met several times. you in singapore in vietnam at the border village on june 30th, 2019, for a photo op as well at panmunjom, they had some kind of a rapport and as i feared upon the first meeting in singapore on june 12, president trump who had delivered the previous year in. 2017 on a visit to south korea,

speaking addressing the south korean parliament national on november seven, 2017, trump gave the most brilliant speech on north korea's human rights violation. it was inspired how did that interest in north korea's grave crimes against humanity last it went out the window during his press conference on june 12. after his meeting, kim, a reporter for the washington, asked about human rights in north korea and president trump defended north, said, well, it's rough there, but it's rough in a lot of plays. i did places you know he's a tough tough leader. he's doing his thing. he's, you know, his he's got to take a tough stance. so i see that kind of dynamic. the of that kind of denial and the kim siblings probably manipulating president trump's propensity toward vanity again

thinking that he can patronize them or control by virtue of his own great talent and intelligence and charisma. i think that's a dangerous assumption. this notion that that the kim's are malleable, easily controlled. just because you're so great. yeah, i'd like to open it up for q&a now. we'll have some mics coming by, if you could please state your name and affiliation if you would like. over here in the front. i my name is james harrison. i'm a here at the asia society. i finished your book this morning and i found were speaking so i ran over. thank you. from upstate to tell you speak. i was confused by some aspects. your book as a westerner. i'm not sure how stratified croatian society works in certain asian cultures and.

i was thinking about the romania and north korea. seems like most monarchy like a monarchy in some ways. even though it's a communist regime. the way romania at one time seemed like it had a regime with aspects of a monarchy in it, and i thought that was really interesting. i wanted to know, you. i wanted to know if you if you studied the history of korea whole peninsula and recognized tendencies or mindsets of of yesteryear that are incorporated into the mindset the kim family as especially in terms of racial purity i don't know if the subject of this of your is just using racism as a juvenile sort of like a troll would be or if there's true true sort of an ideology of racial superiority within her either korean society

or within her society, her part of korean society. and i was wondering if you could help us explain. it seems confusing for us in the west because communism, at least the surface, is supposed to make people more equal. so it seems very strange. a communist regime that's militant communist in some ways is not, is also sort of so unequal. i was wondering if you could help us get us started in understanding class ratification in north korea right now. thank you. well, well famously said to i contradict myself very well. then i contradict myself. i contain multitudes. north korea is a multiple contradictory society. they pretend to be, as you said, an egalitarian communist. but it is the most on the most repressive, the most extreme cult of personality, arguably in

world history. historians on both the left and right of the ideological spectrum have long agreed that north korea is the most perfected, most advanced totalitarian the world has ever seen. stalin. they're like kindergarten. no korean absolute monarch of the past, of course, had access. the kind of technology, surveillance, eavesdropping that korea has had and over the past seven decades to give you an example in north korea and we have a distinguished public intellectual and former north korean senior official here, lee, i think you can attest to it. you need a travel to go from your town to the next town over. they used to have random late night searches like security.

folks show up in the middle of the night just to make sure don't have an unauthorized visitor or a monumental un. the un commission inquiry report on human rights north korea, published in february 2014, makes the very serious allegation that the nature, the gravity and the scale of north korea's crimes against, humanity reveal a state that has no parallel in the contemporary world, that's verbatim, no parallel in the contemporary that north korea is guilty of. quote, knowingly causing prolonged starvation and. quote, these are serious allegations, a policy of mass starvation and, quote and backs it up with evidence. they don't and so on.

so yeah. is north korea contradictory, full of contradictions? yes. and one could, of course, argue that all political systems in varying degrees are two in democracies. but we're talking about different level of contradiction here. and north korea is so unique. it's so different. i say north korea is uniquely unique, although my grade school grammar teacher london would wins at that violation of an absolute adjective anyways. you can't be more unique or less unique. you're really unique, but it's uniquely i mean, you north korea is a population maybe 25, 26 million, not but relatively small country yet maintains a standing of close to 1.2 million. half the population of south korea. yes, yes. but south korea has a big army, too, by the. yes, but in terms of, you know, the number of able bodied men between the of 1650 serving in the north korean army at any

given time it's about one fifth of the male population. nowhere on earth do you see that only china and the us maybe russia have slightly bigger standing armies than north korea. and we're talking about, you know, hundreds of millions, billions of people, india to in terms of its defense budget, north korea anywhere between 25 to 30% is on defense hyper inflated spending. so north korea is very different and. north korea is arguably the most egregious violator of human rights as this u.n. study argues. but to me, the unique test, the most unique aspect of north korea and the most disturbing aspect of north korea, i dwell a bit on this book in a later chapter is the following north korea is the first and only case in world history of an industrial sized, urbanized,

literate country undergoing a famine. and i believe it shall remember forever. the only industrialized literate country to have suffered a famine, a major famine, struck north korea from. 1994 to 1998. how many people died? we don't know. there are, you know, estimates of about half a million to maybe as high as 3 million. we can say with confit so many people starve to death during those years, what's the problem? well, you have starvation, famine like in many other emigrated countries in many other parts of the world. well, none of them. no other country in any major u.n. food study is a fully industrialized urbanized, literate society. literate by literacy, we mean somebody above the age of 6018

who knows basic sentence is who can read and write basic sentences. my name is so and so we we're not talking about high school level or, graduate school level kind of literacy. well, in some very countries, agriculture based countries in other parts of the world, there are especially among the female alarming rate of illiteracy. see, people who can't even write their own name cannot even count from 1 to 10. people who are illiterate, innumerate, sometimes high, as 80% of the female population just think the astounding difficulties, economic disadvantage which in such an underprivileged society, north korea is the opposite. it achieved industrialization. even before south did it was richer than south korea until about the early 1970s. and then somehow took a great leap. but the problem is, yes, there was bad weather, there was poor soils managed meant yes, the

soviet subsidies came to a halt with the collapse of the soviet all exacerbating factors. but what did kim jong il do after his father died in july 1994? he spent about $800 million, with which to build to renovate this palace and to make into the most lavish, extravagant in the world. he. spent $1.5 billion on his missile programs alone. those years he spent another 1.3 billion or so on purchasing about 40 outdated soviet migs from ukraine and kazakhstan. and so on. he had money with which import food, how much are we talking about? maybe $200 million worth of grain if he had done that, spent hundred million dollars with which to buy food and distribute that equitably. no one would have died chose not. and since then it's been almost

years now since the famine same conditions, similar comparable condition have returned since covid there are reports of piles of dead bodies from starvation piling up in various parts throughout north korea, including richer big cities like kazan. across the border. and over the past 30 years, again, north korea. in this study by the un annual study, the prevalence of undernourishment among population, north is sometimes number three in the world. it's always in the top five. together with haiti, central african republic, zambia and so on. again, illiterate in these a-rated economies, often beset by internal unrest, north korea de facto peacetime, industrialized, literate society. so the ongoing hunger in north

korea says and some north korea defenders who are uninformed, ideologically committed to defending korea. they say things like, well the famine and hunger today over, the past 30 years is due to us sanctions and climate change. well, us sanctions there were no us sanctions other than no imports of north korean goods until. 2016. not a single us korea sanctions legislation until 2016 there were no u.n. sanctions whatsoever against korea until north korea's first nuclear test in october 2006, the famine started ten years before that in the nineties and some people also say us sanctions and climate change. that's why the north koreans are hungry. it's a model nature and logic to me that climate change year without fail stops, right at the

border with china and south korea, that it affects only north korea. no one's starving to death, hardly in either south korea or china. in fact, they're doing pretty well. so this is as the un alleges, a manmade man sustained hunger that is passed down from generation to the next generation through this insidious political class system. every north korean newborn is thrust into a political class. you inherit your parents. either favorable top class or lowest class. your identity, life ahead is charted out for at birth through this heredity political discriminatory political classification system. so yes, north korea is full of contradictions and it is a brutish, brutal regime, not any

other questions. there may be. backlash. thanks very much for this very insightful talk. my question is what do you see as north korea's endgame, if you will, 20 years from now, 50 years from now is the state that they that they to continue to be or is there something different that you think might emerge over several decades into future? thank you. we're being recorded right. so i shouldn't be too flippant, but once upon a time when i was a college student, my roommate victor suggested, hey, let's go to a buffet, eat to excess. i think out was the verb he used

and then go bar hopping. and as somebody not opposed to that of sybaritic lifestyle, i cynically turned my friend and said, hey, is that really necessary? and then my friend grew indignant, turned to me and said, are you really necessary? ever since i've been grappling that existential question am really necessary. i don't know. probably. if you were to implicitly pose that very same question to kim jong un and to the nation, he ruled over the dprk. why do you have to exist when there is a very attractive successful, wealthy free korean state across the border? we know that korea under a single polity. undivided for over 1000 years until 1945 when the two principal victors in history's greatest war, the us and the

soviet union, divided korea, it was to a temporary division to facilitate the surrender of japanese troops dispersed throughout the peninsula. but here we are still decades later. would kim jong un be content to be relegate to forever to be the great leader of the loser of korean state? i have not had a chance to ask him that, but i feel perhaps not. why? because they say things like, well, we will finish. the future, the self-reliant revolution by incorporating entire korean peninsula. they say things in the constitution like the, quote unquote, the supreme national task of the party and the state is the completion of the unification program. do they refer being absorbed by south korea? i doubt it very much so. do they have malign intentions

for the south one day incorporating all of south korean territory and people i think so. where is the evidence well again? they say such things all the time, but they lie all the time too. yes, the first. and to date. the only big gamble was the korean war that the grandfather and kim song persuade states stalin and mao, to give him the green light, to go ahead, because all signs out of washington in those days were that the us doesn't care. basically the us had come to abandon south korea despite. having governed south korea for three years, 45 to 48, responsible like secretary of state dean acheson, general macarthur and so on, said so publicly, you know, so lovely communist invasion could happen any place. why obsess over korea? it's a backward country.

once then well, when events took over with the of the north korean invasion, the truman administration saw that invasion a test of the us resolve korea was not an intrinsically worthwhile asset to the united states in those days, but to take no action and let this happen would probably americans thought encouraged stalin and mao who must be controlling this puppet called il sung in his thirties at the time it would only stimulate other side to test interests more aggressively. europe so the us made up its mind to take action. defend south korea that failed attempt. i think that failed business of the supreme national task of uniting under the dprk auspices.

i don't think north korea has given up on that and i think this dedication to developing north korea's nuclear and icbm technology is an component in this game that is to become as north vietnam by the early 1970s, a threat of political burden to the united states, by a constant, serious, credible threat to the us mainland with their icbm, nuclear tipped icbm technology, and then to sue for peace after small scale provocations will provocations and as vietnam achieved. in fact, through signing a peace treaty, the united states by having all u.s. troops withdraw from vietnam and then congress blocked all these promises of aid to the south.

and then, roland, as the north did in 1975 and achieve unification. and it sounds to many outlandish because, you look at south korea today, all the wealth all these achievements and cultural terms, as well as economic, political realms, north korea, really, such a backward country has such ambitions. it seems absurd, unbelievable. i think, to north korea. it's not only a believe label and a compelling mission. it's a non-negotiable proposition to forever remain the inferior, poorer koreans. while south korea serves as a magnet to your own people, this is an existential threat. ending like east germany, perhaps one day. so i think they have a grand strategy as jarring as that term as apply. north korea may sound. right. well, any other questions this

time. hi. thank you so much for this talk. it's fascinating to hear hear your insights. i was wondering if you could speak a little bit to your experience, an expert witness in the auto from bear trial? yes, otto warmbier university, you virginia top student traveled to north korea in late december with a travel group and then he was detained as. the group was to depart from the kim jong airport and north korea charged warmbier of the serious crime of entering the dprk on under the auspices of the cia with the purpose of undermining the single handed the unity of the dprk. that was the official charge in north korea made through the korean central news agency that month in january.

2016. no warmbier a lot of people think stills something, a poster. no. even north korea does not make that claim he was controlled by the cia. he came in to north korea to do some major damage. that's what north korea and warmbier was showcased. and a coerced confession of, his wrongdoings in front of the cameras on leap day, february 29th. and he was visibly and i read a lot of forced statement is using north korean verbiage on idiomatic north korean english also north korean verbiage dpr korea in english dprk democratic republic of korea the formal name of north korea, but using writing dpr korea. dpr korea, which is not natural

to our ears. i also saw make a valiant effort to signal to his family, his parents that this is all show. a show could coerced. he kept saying his father has lost business. the family is in dire straits. economic only. he mentioned the name of his father's company incorrectly and said that his local had promised to give him $200,000 for his younger siblings college tuition, that he was responsible for the eldest child, and that he would also be given used car by this church was controlled by the cia. just made no sense because mr. and mrs. warmbier very secure economically the father's business is successful auto was turned you know we learned later that he's a --. did not attend a church.

so it was, you know, really sinister ploy and north korea did not allow the swedish embassy that has served as the liaison the united states government in cases of us detainees in north korea did not even allow anyone to talk to otto later the next year in june to president trump's credit, kim jong un released otto and he came home brain dead not in peaceful vegetative coma, but in writhing pain. he was deaf, blown blind and, mute in audible pain. and then he died days later did north korea intend to kill him by torturing him? and there's evidence of torture. there is a four inch scar on his

left ankle that was not there before he went to north korea. and one assumes that north korea planted an electrode to administer of electric shock, which is a common north korean torture tactic. the fact that he was brain dead strongly indicates to neurologists that there was a cessation of blood flow to his brain, maybe over 15 minutes. so there is, you know, more than reasonable beyond reasonable doubt of torture. is there such a high degree of certainty with respect intent to kill? no. but that's not necessary in this civil lawsuit that the warmbier family bravely brought to the dprk and at the trial in federal court, the us district court of columbia, dc in december. 2018, the judge explained

birrell, how chief justice howard explained yes, there is probable cause and that's standard, you know, it's more likely than not that north kidnaped, tortured and killed extrajudicial judicial killing unlawful of otto warmbier and awarded the family. $501 million based on precedents based on other cases of hostage taking and torture of american citizens as a deterrent, increase the price quite a bit actually as a deterrent to north korea so that north korea thinks twice about doing such things to u.s. citizens again, it was my honor to participate, to write a written declaration and to appear as an expert witness, take the stand. and i laid out that i believe that north korea intentionally took a us person hostage in

early 2016 because that would afford north an extra layer of security, a security blanket. north korea was gearing up for some major provocation that year throughout. 2016, for example, on january 4th, north korea conducted, the nation's fourth nuclear test, the first in some three years. north korea, conducted the nation's first submarine launch ballistic missile test in april and august. it a long range missile. i technology for the first time in three years on february seventh and so on and it certainly that a new sanctions law was coming a meaningful costly worded sanctions legislation this in the news so i think having a us hostage might temper any american will to really put pressure on north korea economically financially politically even with military drills so on. and i prove that beyond a

reasonable doubt, but that is my hunch based over 20 years of studying north korean history and the chief justice agreed that that was a reasonable line of thinking and based on other evidence, testimony by other experts, doctors, dentists. otto warmbier is middle, lower two teeth, middle most teeth had been pulled out and then planted back about half inch inside his mouth toward back of his mouth in the wrong place and pulling out tooth extraction is another common torture technique in north. so again it's not necessary for the lawsuit to prove that north intended to kill otto. what they did already is bad enough. take him as hostage, torture him and ended up killing him.

so it's a landmark legal case really. before we conclude is there anything else you'd like to share with audience about kim yo jong or this book. so the next time kim yo jong smiles and says, let's talk, let us try not to all fall together into collective amnesia and embrace and peace promises of peace, but take them seriously. she's not to be underestimated just because she is a pretty face young lady, a powerful person that makes all that makes her an interesting figure. but does not have pure peaceful but she does not have fewer peaceful designs. the nature off her dynasty that perhaps she hopes to inherit one day, the nature of the regime, the cult of personality that needs to be maintained, the high

privilege, extravagant lifestyle, power to have people executed on a whim, to play god, deciding who lives, who dies, just because they looked at me in a way i don't like. these were traditionally the relatives of supreme leaders, but according to reports from different locations in north korea as of may 2021, she's been issuing such execution orders, too. she's not a nice lady. she's a fascinating political figure, and she has, i forgot to mention, , issued several statements saying that basically her finger is on the nuclear button. in a statement onil april 3 and april 5 last year she said that if south korea shoots even a single bullet into north korean territory, then i will unleash our states nuclearar force.

that's what she said, nuclear force. and bring about something i can to total ruin and destruction. very specific. and she said her brother has given her the authority to do that. so that's why i say that she is the most dangerous woman, are you believe the most dangerous woman in the world. s s we've never seen a desperate as for life armed with nuclear weapons issuing threats of preemptive nuclear attack against a peaceful neighbor in south korea. so she has to be watched and to be taken veryea seriously. >> please join me in thanking -- [applause] >> weekends on c-span2 on intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories, and on

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