joining me now is kurt campbell who until earlier this year was the administration's point man on asiau.s. secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs. kurt, just first give me your reaction. what do you make of what's going on? because nobody really understands this black box that is north korea. >> first of all it's great to be with you. i would simply say that it's easy to forget, but korean peninsula is still the most dangerous place on the planet, and the north korean leadership is deeply unpredictable under the best of circumstances, and this new leader, who is value just a kid, kim jong-un, has proven himself time and time again over the course of the last few years to be dangerous, almost uncontrollable, and with very few touchstones in asia. china normally had the ability to engage north korea, and control its destiny somewhat. i think that process, that period has passed. he is taking north korea in a very dangerous direction, high tensions with japan, with china, with south korea, and the united states. they really standalone on the global stage. they're well armed

i'm joined by: kurt campbell, former assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairsing president obama's first term-- he now has his own consulting firm; and susan shirk, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for china policy in the clinton administration. she's now a professor of china and pacific relations at the university of california. >> welcome. repeat some of the words that bide said that china's actions, quotes, has raised regional tex tensions and increased the risk of accidents and miscalculations. how serious is this? >> it is pretty serious, unfortunately. if you had to choose two countries that you would not want a crisis to occur between their two militaries it would probably be china and japan, japan is not, has not fired a shot in anger in over 70 years. china has, i think, still an unknown relationship between the party and the military in times of crisis, what we have is higher operational tempos of fishing vessels and other vessels and airplanes around these uninhabited rocks, really in the middle of nowhere in the pacific, with both countri

. >> kurt campbell, former state department official. you got your phd at oxford and you had an opportunity to know people that knew mandela. tell me about them, and tell me about the man you learned about and then knew. >> first of all, it is great to be on this show. the world mourns. a million years ago, i was a student in oxford and i did my thesis on radical politics in south africa and ended up meeting almost every one of nelson mandela's compatriots who worked with him in the struggle to make a multi-racial south africa in the 1960's, before he was arrested. the interesting thing, even years later you meet these guys, they all live modest lives in angola, the outskirts of london or the united states. they talk about their experiences. when time came to talk about mandela, it was as if their gaze settled on something in the distance. everyone, despite their ideology, talk about him with reverence. they rarely talked about his policies. they talked about his character as a person, and how dominant a physical presence he was. people