[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ON THE EVE OF THE SUMMIT:
OPTIONS FOR U.S. DIPLOMACY ON NORTH KOREA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND
THE PACIFIC AND NONPROLIFERATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 26, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-6
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Jason Steinbaum, Democrat Staff Director
Brendan Shieds, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation
BRAD SHERMAN, Chairman
DINA TITUS, Nevada TED YOHO, Florida, Ranking Member
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
GERALD CONNOLLY, Virgina ANN WAGNER, Missouri
AMI BERA, California BRIAN MAST, Florida
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia
Don MacDonald, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Richardson, Honorable Bill, Former Governor of New Mexico, U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Energy, and
Member of Congress............................................. 10
Cha, Dr. Victor, Senior Adviser and Korea Chair, Center for
Strategic and International Studies............................ 16
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 47
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 48
Hearing Attendance............................................... 49
ON THE EVE OF THE SUMMIT: OPTIONS FOR U.S. DIPLOMACY ON NORTH KOREA
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and
Nonproliferation
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in
Room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad Sherman,
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Chairman Sherman. The consensus here seems to be that we
can start. I know that Ranking Member Yoho will be watching
this on video and on his--yes, on the way, and I am confident
that my opening statement will take longer than it takes him to
get here.
I want to welcome all of our colleagues to this first
subcommittee meeting of the congressional session for the
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation.
We could not ask for a more timely hearing with the
president in Vietnam and Kim Jong-Un having just arrived there
by train.
We could not ask for a more distinguished panel, including
Governor Bill Richardson, who is famous for negotiating, and
negotiating successfully, with North Korea, as well as Victor
Cha, who has negotiated with the North as well.
I and the ranking member will give opening statements for 5
minutes and then whichever subcommittee members wish to make an
opening statement will be allocated 2 minutes.
Whether we are safer now than we were in June 2018 when the
Singapore Summit was held and what can be done in Hanoi that
will make us safer, these are the two questions that we ought
to address.
In the first year of his presidency, President Trump
ratcheted up the rhetoric to an extreme level--``little rocket
man,'' et cetera. This rhetoric was matched by the North Korean
rhetoric and there were some that worried that it could lead to
a kinetic war.
Trump stopped the extreme rhetoric. Now things are calmer--
that dialing things up and then dialing them back is hardly a
great accomplishment. The facts are these. When Trump took
over, North Korea had yet to demonstrate a hydrogen bomb.
Now they have. During the Trump presidency, 20--the North
has created enough fissile material for perhaps 20 additional
bombs, perhaps eight additional bombs worth of fissile material
created just since the Singapore Summit.
I am not sure we are safer. Now, we have had a period
without testing. But that is hardly unusual. The North
conducted no nuclear tests from 1994 to 2002 and from 2007 to
2013 they suspended their missile testing from 2009 to 2013. So
a pause in testing of merely a year is not unusual.
What is unusual is this. In the past, pauses in testing may
have slowed down their program. Whereas now Kim Jong-Un said
last April he does not need any additional tests. He has
already developed his hydrogen weapon and his ICBM.
Several hostages have been released by North Korea. But we
have with us a witness who was able to secure the release of a
like number of hostages without making concessions to the North
Korean government and the remains of several service members
have been turned over to the United States.
But, once again, we have a witness here who did that
without making any concessions. Perhaps you should write a book
called ``The Art of the Deal.''
But, more importantly, much larger numbers of the remains
of our servicemen were turned over to us during the Clinton and
Bush Administrations.
We have made enormous concessions to North Korea. First,
Kim has stood on the same level as the most powerful man in the
world. Second, we have weakened our sanctions in two ways.
First, the very act of the summit signals to businesses around
the world that they can do business with North Korea.
And second, we have not sanctioned major Chinese banks. Mr.
Yoho and I, with him as chairman, both in 2017 and again in
2018, of this subcommittee sent letters to the administration
demanding that the major Chinese banks be sanctioned, not just
the tiny ones, and we have received no substantive response.
There has been substantial leakage in our sanctions and the
change in atmosphere caused by the summit is a major reason for
that. We have weakened the U.S.-South Korea military defense
capacity. During the Obama Administration, we had three to four
major exercises per year.
We have had zero major exercises with South Korea since
Singapore and the one--there is one that is scheduled for the
future that may or may not happen. In any case, it has been
scaled down.
As General Abrams, the commander of U.S. forces in Korea,
stated, ``this suspension has led to a denigration of the
readiness of our force. So we have made massive concessions
while getting nothing in return that makes us safer. Nothing."
I believe--and I see I have gone into overtime a bit here
so I will be as quick as possible--I believe we need tougher
sanctions, starting with those two big Chinese--the two letters
that we sent focusing on several Chinese banks--large Chinese
banks. That would send a signal that it is not business as
usual or even business under the table with North Korea.
Second, and I realize this is somewhat controversial, we
ought to define down our definition of success. I do not think
we are going to get CIVD--complete irrevocable verifiable
disarmament--of all nuclear weapons.
But we would be much safer if North Korea had a limited
number of nuclear weapons that were highly monitored. If we
were in that circumstance, North Korea would not be in a
position to sell fissile material or nuclear weapons.
We would limit the amount of damage that they could do and
we could move ourselves to a safer position that we have now.
That is certainly much better than seeing new fissile material
created every day, even while the summit is ongoing.
With that, I yield to the ranking member.
Mr. Yoho. I appreciate it and I thank you.
Governor Richardson, good seeing you. Dr. Cha, good seeing
you again. I had the good fortune of having breakfast with Dr.
Chung-in Moon this morning, who is the advisor of Moon Jae-in,
and his take was a little different.
He thought things were moving along very well and he was
very impressed with President Trump and what he is doing.
But let me go to my notes. Good morning, and thank you,
Chairman Sherman, for calling this hearing. Members on both
sides of the aisle share similar national security concerns and
oversights priorities in regard to the ongoing nuclear
diplomacy discussions between the U.S. and North Korea.
This important issue is fitting for our first subcommittee
hearing of the 116th Congress. I look forward to continuing the
strong bipartisanship and cooperation that this committee has
displayed in the 115th Congress.
As you said, we are on the letter together and we are going
to continue to hold the administration accountable. This
committee worked--this committee works respectfully together,
even in some areas we may have disagreements.
Over the next 2 days, President Trump will conduct a second
summit with Kim Jong-Un, the totalitarian leader of North
Korea. The word historic is often used to describe this summit.
That much is true.
U.S.-DPRK diplomacy has never before taken place at the
heads of States at this level. We should not forget that when
President Trump took office, President Obama warned him that
the Korean Peninsula would present him his most urgent security
challenge.
However, over the course of President Trump's first term,
we have moved from the brink of war to a period of diplomacy.
Again, the heads of two States, first time ever.
As this administration moves forward, let us not forget who
Kim Jong-Un is. He is No. 3 in a family lineage hierarchy that
has held to deity stature. He has allowed his citizens to
suffer while chasing his nuclear ambitions.
He is a dictator who has executed over 140 members of the
elite military that surrounded his father and grandfather,
including his own uncle.
He ordered the assassination of his brother in Malaysia
using VX nerve gas. He also threatened the U.S. with nuclear
annihilation and he sent medium-range ballistic missiles over
Japan and proudly claimed that he would target our territory in
the South Pacific--Guam--and the mainland, if so desired.
So, yes, this is a historic second summit. But we must
call--but we must call for extreme caution as we move forward.
Keep in mind, three previous administrations have attempted to
solve the North Korea dilemma and failed, allowing the Kim
regimes to advance their nuclear programs and capabilities.
Unfortunately, one fact outside of the White House control
remains unchanged. The Kim regime does not deal in good faith.
Kim Jong-Un appears to be using the same play book as his two
predecessors used before, which is to promise peace,
denuclearization in exchange for sanction relief. Once this is
granted, the DPRK continues their deceit and lying and
continuation of a dangerous nuclear program.
We need to note that nothing has occurred since the
Singapore Summit in 2018 in terms of denuclearization. I am
extremely concerned that any concessions presented by the
DPRK's diplomatic outreach are hiding equally significant
risks.
The president and his team have a giant task at hands. The
facts show us that North Korea has not taken any meaningful
action to dismantle its nuclear or missile programs.
There has been no disclosure of the number of nuclear
bombs, ICBMs, or even clear definition of what denuclearization
means to all sides. Much work needs to be done during this
second historic summit.
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-Un's international standing has never
been higher, as you pointed out, Chairman Sherman. Kim's
diplomatic gambit has led South Korean President Moon to
embrace him as a partner in the shared dream for peace and
reunification that has given him the pretext of strategic
coordination with China and a personal relationship with Xi
Jinping.
Kim will also visit Vladimir Putin in Russia later this
year. Kim's diplomacy has cost him nothing but has short-
circuited the unanimous U.N. sanction campaign. Although Putin
and Xi were never reliable partners in pressuring North Korea,
Kim has shown he can leverage China-Russia relationships
against U.N.-led sanctions and U.S. maximum sanction strategy,
and our goal is to hold the administration accountable.
The goal of this committee is to facilitate the summit to
allow this administration to be successful where previous
administrations came up short.
I believe our combined intentions are to hold the
administration accountable and make sure sanctions are not
relieved until we get significant assurance and verification
that the actions of Kim Jong-Un are sincere in bringing
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
We are privileged to be joined by the two witnesses who
have personally sat across from North Korean counterparts at
sensitive talks and I thank them both for being here with us
today.
Today's hearing will be a valuable opportunity for this
subcommittee and the members to develop an understanding of the
specifics of this week's summit and what expectations are
reasonable and what we should realistically expect and how to
measure success.
And I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Sherman. Who seeks to give an opening statement?
The gentleman right here. I see the gentleman from
Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair, and I want to welcome our
panelists and especially my old friend, Governor Bill
Richardson, who has a distinguished career but maybe the most
important part of his career was he served as a staffer on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee--a great place from which to
launch a career.
You know, Mr. Chairman, all of us, while our president is
overseas at a summit negotiating with one of the most notorious
dictators in the world, we wish him well. We want our president
to succeed.
Nothing would be better than to have success in
denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula once and for all and
setting the North Korean regime on a peaceful path for
prosperity and coexistence with its neighbors, especially South
Korea.
However, it is important that we approach negotiations
clear-eyed, and I worry, as do many Americans, I think, that
our president arrives in Hanoi in a very weakened position and
because he does not do preparation, he does not read briefing
papers, he does not like even briefings verbally, that he
enters into these negotiations maybe with positive spirit but
not with great preparation, and what could go wrong with that
when you are up against Kim Jong-Un?
And one trembles a little bit at the answer to that kind of
rhetorical question. And so I think it is really important that
we be very clear about what our goals are and that there be no
fudging and that there be, frankly, no further concessions to
the North until we see specific reciprocation on the table.
And so I hope for success but I think we have to prepare
for the worst. I yield back.
Chairman Sherman. Mr. Bera.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank both you,
Governor Richardson and Dr. Cha, for your service to our
country along with the men and women that we have serving our
country all around this world as we speak.
I was at that same breakfast with the ranking member and we
had--with Dr. Moon as well as our former Ambassador, Ambassador
Stephens, who has a long history on the Korean Peninsula.
The one takeaway that, you know, I think they left us with
is, I think, as my colleague, Mr. Connolly--let us go into this
open eyed, but let us also understand realistic expectations of
what we might be able to get out of this and I think those
realistic expectations are maybe that the parameters that allow
you then to say, OK, here is what the steps are, moving
forward, as opposed to coming out with any concrete deal, et
cetera, and I think they both--Dr. Moon and Ambassador
Stephens--said that would be a realistic successful goal if
there were the framework and the parameters of how you now
proceed and, you know, what those next steps are, again, not
with any promises, et cetera, but the next steps in what a
dialog would be.
I will be very interested in both of your expertise on the
Peninsula on what you think those parameters would be and what
a successful outcome of this meeting over the next few weeks.
And with that, I will yield back.
Chairman Sherman. I recognize the gentlelady from Virginia.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you to the chair. Thank you, Governor
Richardson. Thank you, Dr. Cha, for being here.
The North Korean regime continues to pose a serious
security threat to the United States, our interests at home and
abroad, and ahead of the week summit in Hanoi we must also
recognize how North Korea's belligerent and destabilizing
behavior endangers our longstanding allies in the region and
threatens our own country.
I am always in favor of pursuing diplomatic negotiated
solutions. However, Kim Jong-Un has repeatedly demonstrated
that he cannot be trusted and we should always view his
intentions with incredible skepticism.
As the United States weighs its diplomatic, economic, and
deterrence options to push back against North Korean aggression
and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, we need to pursue a
smart tough strategy informed by U.S. intelligence that
protects the lives of U.S. service members in South Korea and
actually limits North Korea's nuclear capabilities.
Additionally, we need to avoid any concessions that could
jeopardize the safety of our allies and we cannot ignore
Pyongyang's long record of atrocious crimes committed against
its own people.
As talks proceed, I will keep fighting to prevent American
communities from living under the potential threat of North
Korean missiles, nuclear weapons, and cyber aggression, and I
will continue to voice my support for increased U.S. diplomatic
engagement and improved coordination with our allies that
protects U.S. interests and recognizes the true threat that is
currently posed by the North Korean regime.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Sherman. Seeing no other requests for time, I will
introduce our first witness. Since 2010, Governor Richardson
has operated the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, a
foundation focusing on conflict resolution, prisoner release,
and environment protection.
In his long and distinguished career, he served as Governor
of New Mexico, secretary of energy, a U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations, and as a member of this House for 15 years,
overlapping my service in the House by exactly 1 month before
he went on to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations.
As Gerry points out, Governor Richardson started working in
the Senate and then came to the House, showing tremendous
upward trajectory.
He has regularly served as an official and unofficial
interlocutor with North Korea for more than two decades. During
this time he has visited North Korea eight times, once with Dr.
Cha, securing the release of four Americans being held hostage
in North Korea and helping to bring home the bodies of seven
American service members who died in North Korea.
We are honored to have you and very pleased to have you as
the summit begins to open, Governor Richardson.
STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARDSON, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW MEXICO,
U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, SECRETARY OF ENERGY, AND
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Mr. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I just want to
state that some of my best years working were as a member of
this House, although I was not privileged to serve on this
committee.
It is good to see former friends, good friends--Congressman
Connolly, Congresswoman Titus, and you, Mr. Chairman. I have
not had the pleasure to speak to others here.
But I will tell you I have been here long enough to say
that I saw Mr. Levin come in and I was elected to Congress in
1982 with Mr. Levin's father, which shows you how long I have
been around.
And it is great to be with Victor Cha. There is probably
nobody in this country that knows the Peninsula better than Dr.
Cha, and you are right, Mr. Chairman--we went together to North
Korea and brought back the remains of seven of our service
members.
The first summit between the president and Chairman Kim in
June 2018 produced a good moment for both leaders. They struck
a personal relationship, an aspirational joint statement, a
couple of outcomes such as the repatriation of remains of U.S.
servicemen, and I think the president does deserve credit for
taking the meeting with Kim Jong-Un.
The region is--the region is less tense. There is more
diplomacy. There is considerable, I would say, better
atmospherics in the entire region.
However, the last summit failed to produce what I think is
a workable framework for negotiations and, like other summits,
there was little or no staff work on substance prior to the
meeting.
As a result, following the summit, the two sides did not
have a roadmap on how to proceed and what we saw was this
organized efforts to get to a framework with both sides
positioning but without any progress.
I think Chairman Kim has made it very clear that his
preferred negotiating partner is President Trump, not Secretary
of State Pompeo, not the chief negotiator, Stephen Biegun, or
working level teams.
This is why once a second summit was announced,
negotiations and communications between the two sides were
revived. By the way, I think that the special envoy for North
Korea, Stephen Biegun, is a very skilled negotiator who has
worked with many Members of Congress and I would recommend the
subcommittee calling him for briefings after the summit.
So what we have is a situation where I think these latest
talks, unfortunately, the whole issues of disarmament--arms
control, which are key--have yielded a bit to what is called
peace diplomacy, which is good.
But the main focus, I believe, and accomplishments should
have been the dismantling of nuclear weapons, WMDs, of
missiles, and my sense is that the summit will fall short in
that area.
We should be clear about what our expectations of what is
possible, what is not, and what would be the cost of an
agreement with the North Koreans.
Point No. 1--chances that the North Koreans will get rid of
their existing stockpiles are very slim or nonexistent. They
believe that these weapons are the reasons we are negotiating
with them and the only reason we have not yet overpowered them
militarily.
Point No. 2--we can expect and demand the North Koreans
cease all further development of nuclear weapons, WMDs, and
ballistic missiles and have clear means for verification of
dismantling such capability.
No. 3--we can expect and demand that North Koreans cease
any further testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles
and have verification of the dismantling of launch and test
sites.
Point No. 4--we can expect and demand the North Koreans
cease any proliferation of operations they have on nuclear
technology, WMDs, and determine the means to verify this.
In return--point No. 5--the North Koreans are going to
demand the removal of sanctions, the end of the war, the
normalization of relations, and the reduction of military
presence on the Peninsula.
So an agreement with these guidelines I believe might be
possible, should be gradual, but broken into smaller reciprocal
steps. Thus, a successful second summit between the two leaders
should produce what the first summit failed to do:
One, a detailed framework for negotiations including time
lines, terms of reference, and routine schedule of summits.
No. 2, set times for ongoing negotiations, both working
level, high level, and perhaps additional Presidential summits.
Considering Chairman Kim's preference to negotiate directly
with the president, Presidential summits should not be ruled
out as long as good preparatory work is done and I am not sure,
because of the president's diplomatic style, that we are
heading into this summit with the best preparations.
Last, terms of reference for negotiations, general guiding
principles for final agreement, definitions, and constraints,
as well as time lines and benchmarks for the negotiation
process.
No. 2--and this is very important--an agreed pathway to
recover and repatriate remains of U.S. servicemen. As the
chairman pointed out, we got some but there are many, many
more, and since this is a mutual interest of both sides, it is
an easy and very powerful outcome for the summit.
Many of you, I am sure, have relatives or have constituents
that are affected directly with the remains of our soldiers and
very compelling families that have come together to organize
and ask that the U.S. administration, over the years, try to
bring back the remains of several thousand of our men and women
that have been in North Korea.
No. 3, a mechanism and safeguards to mitigate risk of
conflict if a crisis in negotiation occurs. This can happen by
establishing a hotline between the leaders or mitigating
contact group to include regional stakeholders.
But there are other gestures the United States can offer
that are short of policy concessions, which can be highly
symbolic and motivating for the North Koreans, recommitment to
the aspirational joint statement of the June summit.
The summit would be a failure, in my judgment, if the
following is not produced:
One, failure to produce a practical and detailed framework
for negotiations, failure to define benchmarks in terms of
reference--without such framework, negotiations are going to
fizzle once again until the next summit is announced;
No. 2, failure to establish a roadmap for recovery and
repatriation of remains; and three, ambiguity and no record of
agreements and understandings reached between the two leaders
during their one-on-one meeting.
So finally, Mr. Chairman, here is my concern. I stated the
first one, that the disarmament talks yield and not produce
concrete denuclearization agreements.
The danger I see with North Korea is they do not want to
denuclearize. We have different definition of denuclearization.
My worry, too, is that somehow we will not get in this summit
an inventory of all the nuclear weapons, fissile material that
North Korea has.
They are very concerned--the North Koreans, having talked
to them for years--that if they disclose where these sites are
that we are going to bomb the sites, quite frankly, and they do
not want to disclose. But that is essential for any kind of
verification or arms control agreement.
So my concern is that on the issue of arms control and
disarmament there is going to be a very low bar for success
such as destroying the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which I
have been to that reactor. I think that has been promised
several times. I am not sure how operational it is, and Dr. Cha
probably has better information than I do.
Also, there have been some sites that have been allegedly
missile sites terminated. I am not sure if even verifying those
sites or that one or two sites that that is significant
disarmament initiative on the part of North Korea.
Another concern I have is that the negotiating partners in
the past that we have had--Victor, myself--have been the
foreign ministry and, generally, the foreign ministry of the
North Korean Republic--the DPRK--they are pragmatic.
You can deal with them, on prisoners, on human rights,
issues relating to remains, especially the Korean People Army--
the military--which, in my judgment, is quite flexible.
Our negotiating partners are the intelligence people now,
the spy chief, and I am not sure that diplomacy wise they are
necessarily the most flexible. That concerns me, too.
So at the very end, in conclusion, here is my worry--that
yes, some positive statements come out of the summit, some
positive initiatives such as perhaps some joint searches for
remains of our soldiers to sites that are being looked at for
joint excavation of remains.
Two, a liaison office. All right. That is good. That is
good that we talk. That is good that we have operations in
North Korea. But the North Koreans may not agree to it because
they think that that is a way that we spy on them.
Three, human rights issues relating to North and South,
investments, economic development, development of joint
economic facility between North and South, family reunification
for North and South. That is good.
But my concern is that the true goal of denuclearization,
which is the issue of dismantling weapons of mass destruction--
missiles, nuclear detonations, nuclear--will not happen. Maybe
a freeze. All right. That is better than nothing.
But those are my concerns, Mr. Chairman. I want the
president to succeed. You know, this is probably our most
dominant national security threat that we have.
But I do not think the threat is diminished.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Richardson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sherman. Thank you, Governor. I think we all want
the president to succeed.
Dr. Victor Cha is a senior advisor and Korea chair at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies here in
Washington, DC. He is also a professor in government and
international affairs at Georgetown University.
Between 2004 and 2007 he served as director for Asian
affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. He
was responsible primarily for our relations with Japan, the
Korean Peninsula, and the Pacific nations.
Dr. Cha was also the deputy head of the delegation for the
United States at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing.
Dr. Cha.
STATEMENT OF MR. CHA, PH.D., SENIOR ADVISER AND KOREA CHAIR,
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Cha. Thank you, Chairman Sherman, Ranking Member Yoho,
members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be here with you
today as well as with Governor Richardson.
The last time I saw you I think we were in Pyongyang
together a little while--a few years back. But it is really
good to be here with the Governor.
Let me first say that I think President Trump deserves
credit for a couple of things. The first is that he stepped
away from the fire and fury posture of 2017.
Second is that he has invested in summit diplomacy based on
the theory that there is only--the reality that there is only
one person in North Korea that makes the decision. That is the
leader of North Korea. So you have to talk to them.
Three, he is really invested a lot of capital into try to
building a personal relationship with the North Korean leader.
And so I think, as everybody said here, we want him to succeed
this week.
But what I want to do is focus my comments on five numbers
that I think we need to take into consideration with regard to
what is going to happen this week, because there are a lot of
opinions here and around town on North Korea and not a lot of
data. So I am going to bring some data points to the
discussion.
The first is 1963, and 1963 is important because it is when
North Korea started landscaping the ground for where they would
build the Yongbyon nuclear complex. So this was not a program
that started after the end of the cold war when they lost the
support of the Soviet Union and China.
They had been building this program for well over half a
century. So I think as many of us clearly believe, I do not
think they are fully going to denuclearize.
The second number is 20. That refers to the number of
undisclosed missile bases in North Korea--short-range, medium-
range, and intermediate range ballistic missile bases.
North Korea can close facilities without denuclearizing.
They can close facilities that they no longer need, things from
their past, and they can promise things about their future--the
promise not to transfer, the transfer not to do more testing.
But what they will hold in their hands is the present and
that are things like--those are things like these 20 missile
bases, the nuclear weapons stockpile, things of these--things
of this nature. That is a negotiating challenge.
The third number is 108, and this is the number of times
that the president has made reference to his--made reference to
the question of whether we need to have U.S. forces in Korea.
One of the key metrics for me of the success of this
meeting will not be so much what North Korea gives, because I
think that they will give very little, but that we do not cut
into our alliance equities and offer those as negotiating chips
to North Korea--things like our exercises and our readiness,
our troop disposition on the Peninsula. These are not things
that should be traded for temporary gains on North Korea.
The fourth number is 2007. 2007 refers to the last
agreement that we were a part of where North Korea agreed to a
peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and the stipulation then
was that at an appropriate time North Korea and the United
States and other parties would engage in peace regime talks.
The phrase ``at an appropriate time'' referred to North
Korean denuclearization, return to the nonproliferation treaty,
and full scope compliance with IAEA safeguards. So the idea of
a peace regime was contingent on these steps forward.
What we are doing now is we are potentially front loading
the peace regime part to see if we can get steps toward
denuclearization and compliance with IAEA NPT safeguards.
And, finally, fifth--the fifth number is two, and that
refers to 2 years have gone by and the administration has still
not appointed a senior envoy for human rights abuses in North
Korea. The human rights issue is often framed as a distraction
to the negotiations but it is not. For all of us to achieve our
objectives, the human rights issue needs to be addressed.
President Trump has made very clear that the core element
of his negotiation is to offer North Korea a brighter economic
future in return for giving up their weapons.
That brighter economic future cannot come without some
addressing of the human rights abuses because there is no
international financial institution, there is no general
counsel of any American corporation that is going to recommend
putting money into North Korea if there are human rights abuses
along the supply chain.
So it is in the interests of both the United States, South
Korea, and North Korea to bring human rights into the
discussion.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cha follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sherman. I am going to hold off on my questions
for a bit and recognize the gentlelady from Nevada.
Ms. Titus. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you and the ranking member for bringing us such
outstanding witnesses. They are so knowledgeable and I so much
appreciate their being with us today.
Both of you have mentioned how the president likes to
negotiate directly with the chairman and he seems to prefer
this mano a mano kind of diplomacy as opposed to anything
multilateral.
Some of us believe, however, you have to include your
allies as you move forward in any kind of negotiation and I
believe part of our success working with North Korea we will be
able to work in collaboration with both Japan and South Korea.
Would you two please address what you think are the
consequences of our not bringing them into the circle or how is
our leadership in terms of getting them to work together with
us on this, even though their interests may not always align
and their interests may not always align with ours?
Mr. Richardson. In my judgment, Congresswoman, we need to
work with Japan better than we have. My sense is Japan has been
left out of the negotiations with North Korea. You know, there
is a rivalry with South Korea, who has been deeply engaged with
us.
So Japan is vulnerable to a missile attack and this is a
horrific prospect that the Japanese people are concerned about.
They also are concerned about getting some of their human
rights issues addressed by North Korea.
South Korea--I think President Moon has been very
constructive. He was elected as a peace candidate dialog with
North Korea. But sometimes I feel that he is getting ahead of
us on wanting an agreement with North Korea at all costs, in my
judgment.
They are great allies, and Dr. Cha mentioned I think it was
a mistake initially at the first summit for the United States
to make a concession, which is to reduce or terminate the
number of military exercises we had with South Korea.
So the last peg here is China. I do believe China has made
a positive effort at sanctions. You know, most of the commerce
that goes through North Korea is through China and China, I
believe, through the United Nations and other entities, there
are coal sanctions, energy sanctions, people sanctions against
North Korea. But they are not going to operate well unless they
are enforced.
I think China has done a better job in the past of
enforcing sanctions. But there is a lot of cross-border
contraband that they could do a better job of enforcing.
And, quite frankly, I have been a little worried. I know we
have some tense trade negotiations with China that somehow
China has to say, well, you know, you want to slap some tariffs
on us--maybe we will not help you as much on sanctions with
North Korea, which is vital.
Russia has not observed sanctions as much as they should--
in fact, very little. That is another problem.
So you are right, Congresswoman. You got to have regional
support for what you are doing. I am pleased that they are
having this summit in Vietnam.
I think Vietnam is an emerging positive country that is
pro-private sector, that, you know, is concerned about Chinese
expansionism and I am pleased that they are part of this
regional situation.
But the Six-Party Talks, which Victor was involved with--
the other countries, which encircle the whole issue--I am not
sure the Six-Party Talks can be revived again. I hope they
would. But this is how I see the regional perspective that you
mentioned.
Ms. Titus. Doctor?
Mr. Cha. Yes. So on China, the key is to get China to
continue to enforce sanctions. Without Chinese economic
pressure, the North Koreans are not going to be willing to
negotiate in earnest.
Ninety percent of North Korea's external trade today is
with China. So if they do not put pressure on it does not work.
With South Korea, it is really restraining them. They are
so enthusiastic about moving forward that they too can do
things that would undercut U.S. leverage at the table. And then
with regard to Japan, as Governor Richardson said, they are--
they are going to be important to any political and diplomatic
deal that is reached with North Korea.
Historically, they have been important in the past two
deals and they will be important again. So it is important that
we--it is critical that as we go into Hanoi that we have all of
these pieces in the right place, and that takes work. That is--
there is bilateral discussions with the North Koreans but there
is also all this work you have to do on the side.
Ms. Titus. Do you feel like that is taking place?
Mr. Cha. I think with the South Koreans I have a sense that
it is. But it is difficult with the Chinese because of the
trade disputes, and Korea and Japan, our two key allies, are
just not talking to each other right now.
And so it was important that Secretary Pompeo, in his last
meeting with the South Korean foreign minister, expressly
talked about the need for more trilateral coordination because
usually we go into these meetings with North Korea having fully
consulted with Seoul and with Tokyo. And right now, because of
the difficulties between Seoul and Tokyo we are not able to do
that.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sherman. The ranking member is recognized.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
testimony.
Again, I am going to just reiterate the historic nature of
this. You know, in the past there has been three attempts--in
the Clinton Administration, in the Bush, and the Obama
Administration--to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula.
Yet, during those negotiations they were traditional. They
had traditional negotiators, people from the State Department,
diplomacy and all of that, and they did not work.
And so I think this is a great tactic. History will look
back on this moment, whether it was a good one or a bad one,
and let us hope for the--that it turns out the way we want it
to.
But and you brought this up, Governor Richardson. An
agreement should be gradual and broken into small reciprocal
steps, and you both have experience in the Asian market.
In order to do business, what we have heard, what is the
first thing you have to establish to move forward in any
negotiations over there?
Dr. Cha.
Mr. Cha. I mean, you have to establish a relationship. You
have to establish a relationship with the other party. You just
do not slap a legal document on the table. You have to
establish a relationship.
Mr. Yoho. That is what Americans are bad at. We have been
told over and over again--you guys want to get here, get the
bottom line, and you do not want to know anything about us.
And so I commend, I will say, the foresight of President
Trump reaching out to do this, and he has lavished praise and
edification on Kim Jong-Un that he has probably never had, and
I will hold off on whether he should deserve any of that at
this point.
But we need to look into the future of where we are going
and we cannot move forward if we do not have that initial trust
and that relationship. And then I had the opportunity to talk
to Special Envoy Biegun about what denuclearization is.
Do we have a firm commitment of what it is that all parties
agree on? Do you guys have any speculation or any idea? Do we
have a sound definition?
Mr. Cha. I think that there is a definition, Congressman,
you know, that has been agreed to by the North Koreans in the
past in writing and that is denuclearization means they will
give up all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs. That
is language that they signed up to in 2007.
I believe that--I believe that that is what the president
believes and that is the definition I think we will try to push
for in Hanoi.
Mr. Richardson. I believe that the North Koreans--we have a
different perspective of what denuclearization is. I think that
is the problem. In other words, we think, Congressman, that
denuclearization is dismantling, destroying, ending whatever--
the 40 nuclear weapons, the WMD.
The North Koreans do not believe in that definition. They
want to keep their weapons. They want to keep some of their
weapons.
Now, so far, they have dismantled nothing. So there is a
definition--what is the word I am looking for--a definition
deficit here----
Mr. Yoho. Yes.
Mr. Richardson [continuing]. On what denuclearization is.
Now, I do agree, you have to have trust--I think maybe that was
the word you were looking for--in the relationship between the
two leaders and I will maybe take a little issue with what you
said.
Under the Clinton Administration, the agreed framework,
North Korea did not produce any weapons for 9 years and I think
the Bush Administration negotiated well with North Korea. The
problem was North Korea was intent on increasing their arsenal
and they are still doing it right now while saying they are for
denuclearization.
Mr. Yoho. Right. And I just--let me just add here, I am not
putting criticism on anybody----
Mr. Richardson. Right. OK.
Mr. Yoho [continuing]. You know, because that is not going
to do us any good. It is what can we learn from that that we
can move forward. And, again, that breakfast I had this morning
with Dr. Chung-in Moon, he has been there at all three
negotiations--probably the only person that was there on the
first three and he has been to every meeting up there with
President Moon.
He says he has seen a distinct difference in North Korea
today from when it was before. Before when they went there it
was all military that was present in the negotiations, in the
streets, in the Pyongyang whereas today you do not see hardly
any military presence.
So the atmosphere in North Korea has changed. Let us just
hope that we can have a definition that we all agree on that we
can move forward based on that trust, and what he said that Kim
Jong-Un has said that we have destroyed Yongbyon nuclear site.
But it was a nonfunctional one, as we understood it. But,
yet, he has not sent anybody in there to verify it from the
outside world other than their word and those things have got
to be built upon to move forward.
And let us just hope that the skilled people we have, with
Secretary Pompeo and Stephen Biegun, can move in that direction
to help facilitate those documents to move forward and that
once and for all we bring this Korean conflict to an end, peace
to the Peninsula with reunification as they see fit to serve
them between North and South, and that we look at trade because
our top four trading--after World War II we were in a war with
Germany, France.
Since then it was Korea and Vietnam. None of those
countries today have nuclear weapons and are--some of them are
our best trading partners.
So the idea that we want to implore to Mr. Kim is you do
not need nuclear weapons. Let us just focus on trade and get
rid of this and move forward on our economies and our
countries.
I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Sherman. Thank you.
The gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair. Well, maybe on a more
critical note--I think a case could be made for diplomatic
malpractice in how we are approaching North Korea. Remember
that this is the administration that ripped up the JCPOA with
Iran, that by all accounts is working in every metric, because
it was inadequate.
And yet, they meet with the nuclear threat, Kim Jong-Un and
North Korea, and he gets international legitimacy from meeting
with the president of the United States, that audience with the
president directly, the cancellation of military exercises with
our South Korean allies, and in the joint statement they do not
even mention that denuclearization needs to be irreversible and
verifiable, which is one of our goals.
Not even mentioned in the joint statement. Nor is there any
mention of the North's ballistic missile program--a criticism
used to justify the evisceration of the JCPOA.
Why should we not look at that and call that what it is,
diplomatic malpractice? We have nothing, and Kim Jong-Un has a
lot.
Now, maybe that is a strategic sort of move where we are
being patient and waiting for the future and this summit may
then prove that there are other steps. But it seems to me that
thus far nothing has happened and we have not even furthered
the goals ostensibly we say we are committed to.
Dr. Cha.
Mr. Cha. Thank you, Congressman.
So I am a professor so I will give you another number, and
that is seven. That is the number of pages that the agreement
that we worked on in 2007 was. It was seven pages long--the
Six-Party joint statement.
The JCPOA, I think, was 150 pages. I do believe that if we
are going to move forward with denuclearization with North
Korea, we are going to need a document that is much more
detailed, certainly, than what came out of Singapore and even
what came out of the previous two agreements under President
Bush and under President Clinton.
Mr. Connolly. Well, let me just--a little footnote. Yes,
but from your point of view after the first summit, did Kim
Jong-Un commit to anything?
Mr. Cha. No. I think the first summit laid out a statement
of principles. In many ways, it was an agreement between the
leaders about what the outcome of diplomacy should be, which is
normalized relations, a peace treaty, and a fully denuclearized
North Korea.
But subsequent to that, there were really no steps that
took us tangibly down any of those paths.
Mr. Connolly. Governor Richardson.
Mr. Richardson. With what Dr. Cha--what you said, on the
diplomacy side, I have been very involved with the remains
issue. I think something positive has come out of that. We need
to do a lot more.
I do think there are some human rights family
reunifications between North and South that are better.
Third, you know, this is very vague but there is less
tension in the Peninsula. However, Congressman, I agree with
you in terms of what North Korea committed to in the first
summit--complete denuclearization.
They have done nothing there. In fact, they increased their
enriched uranium capability. You know, they are not doing much.
Mr. Connolly. That is right.
Mr. Richardson. This is why I just hope the president, and
Congressman Yoho mentioned Stephen Biegun and Pompeo--
especially Biegun. He knows what he is doing.
Mr. Connolly. Mr.--Governor Richardson, because I am going
to run out of time but I thank you for that answer.
Let me ask one other question. One of the concerns some
people have is that North Korea is about to get us into a trap
so that we sign an agreement ending the war, after 66 years.
But in doing that, which is a laudable goal, we undermine
the rationale for U.S. troop trip wire presence in South Korea.
Is that a realistic concern, Dr. Cha, and also Governor
Richardson?
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Cha. Yes. I mean, I think there is some concern among
experts that in trying to get bigger steps on denuclearization
we might put bigger chips on the table.
As I said in my testimony, I think there should be a bright
red line between things that we do on sanctions versus things
that we do with our alliances. Sanctions, liaison offices, some
of the things that Governor Richardson mentioned--they may be
part of the bargain. But we should not be trading away alliance
equities.
Mr. Connolly. If the chair would allow Governor Richardson
also to answer, I thank the chair.
Mr. Richardson. Yes. Congressman, I agree. I would not
trade an end to the war treaty or unless there is a
denuclearization of sizable numbers of dismantling of weapons
and WMD and missiles. I would not.
Perhaps a vaguer statement that says tensions are less and
the war is over, OK. Maybe. But not as a tradeoff unless there
is substantial denuclearization.
And I am concerned. There have been some reports that we
are considering that. And it means exactly what you said--the
vulnerability of us being or having to look at troop reductions
in South Korea. We have 30,000 troops there--28,000.
Chairman Sherman. I will recognize Mr. Bera after I
recognize the gentleman from Utah.
Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
This is an important hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for
being here.
I am hopeful that we see a productive summit. I, for one,
view it as historic and important to be taking these steps.
However, we know that the Kim regime does not negotiate in good
faith and I think many of us are optimistic but worrisome.
Regardless of the outcome of the summit, I for one will
continue to urge the administration to use every possible
economic and diplomatic solution to find answers and bring us
forward.
As I listened to your testimoneys and questions of my
colleagues, I sometimes feel like we have a cultural thing here
in America where we want to solve everything immediately and we
hope that one summit or two summits has this magic ability to
solve it.
So I am curious, from both of your perspectives, not
whether we are on the cusp of solving this but how do you see
the trajectory? Are we improving and moving in a good
trajectory? I guess that is my simple question.
Governor first, and then Dr. Cha.
Mr. Richardson. Well, the trajectory is going to depend a
lot on the results of this summit--this upcoming summit
starting today or tomorrow. My hope, Congressman, is that there
be substantial progress on the denuclearization issue.
You talked about long range. I think it was unrealistic for
anyone to expect North Korea to denuclearize completely. They
always have--and if you look at that language, they have said
it in the agreement with Clinton, with Bush, and they never do
it.
Now, is there a trajectory that is more positive? I think
we have underestimated Kim Jong-Un. I think in the end--and I
am not--I am not praising him. I am saying he is--his vision is
an exchange for the lesser--some dismantling of nuclear
weapons.
He wants American investment. He wants European investment.
He wants infrastructure. He wants energy, a new grid, and so
the trajectory is in that direction. His father, I think, was
more of a--I will not call him--he was more of a negotiator.
He used to say, OK, well, you want this prisoner back from
the United States--send President Clinton to pick him. You
know, things like that.
Mr. Curtis. Right. And I hate to push you but I am going to
be short on time so let me--let me move on.
Mr. Cha. So I think if we look, starting, Congressman, from
2017, in 2017 there were 20 North Korean ballistic missile
tests and a hydrogen bomb test and we were moving military
assets to the region.
I mean, it was a really scary time. I mean, since then we
have gotten no diplomacy. We have gotten no more testing by the
North Koreans.
I just came back from South Korea about 10 days ago and
there is a completely different view now in South Korea.
Everybody says, the war is over--like, why do not we just admit
the war is over.
So I think there has been certainly a positive trajectory
since 2017. But, as the Governor said, the key piece is we
really need to see tangible steps on denuclearization coming
out of the summit because this has to be a road to somewhere,
right, and so that is the key piece.
Mr. Curtis. Let me kind of followup on that. We almost
exclusively talked about denuclearization and yet we have said
in this hearing today that Japan could be hit by long-range
ballistic missiles.
Is it a mistake not to have a broader scope than just
denuclearization?
Mr. Cha. No. I agree that it must include ballistic
missiles, not just the long-range but also the shorter and
medium range ones.
Mr. Curtis. As well. What is there culturally that
Americans need to understand that would help us better
understand this process. The two cultures, right, are very,
very different.
I mentioned earlier ours is one of immediate expectations
and things like that. What is there culturally that Americans
could better understand that would help us get our arms around
this process?
Mr. Richardson. From my experience--from my experience,
they negotiate totally differently than we do. Their idea of a
concession is they think they are always right.
It is a deity that guides them--the father or the
grandfather of Kim Jong-Un--and their idea of a concession is
they will give you a little more time for you to get to their
point of view.
That is their idea of a concession. They always want you to
go first. You make the concession and then we will--you know,
we will see about whether we reciprocate or not. They are
deeply suspicious of us, totally.
I mean, they think if we--if they disclose where their
weaponsites are we are going to bomb them. I mean, there is
just--I have been there several times. It is just another--
another world.
Mr. Curtis. OK. I am out of time. Let me thank both of you
and yield my time back.
Chairman Sherman. I know I had said it would be the
gentleman from California. However, the gentlelady from
Pennsylvania has returned. She is vice chair of this
subcommittee and she is recognized.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I appreciate that, and thank you,
gentlemen, for your testimony.
The history of negotiations between the U.S. and North
Korea is, obviously, long and tumultuous. But one thing is
clear and I think a lot of people have been talking about it--
the importance of all of our allies and our partners in the
region and making sure that we are respectful to them.
What is your assessment of how the administration is or is
not implementing ARIA, or the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act,
which we recently signed in December?
And, specifically, can you talk a little bit about the
U.S.-Korea special measures agreement that was recently also
agreed to and the impact that it might have on our bilateral
relationships since it is a short timeframe instead of a longer
timeframe?
And then, finally, if you could talk about that impact on
Japan, who is also up for that same kind of conversation as
well and its impact on our relationship with that important
ally.
Mr. Cha. So, Congresswoman, I would say that the special
measures, or SMA negotiations, have created a lot of ripple
effects I think not just in Korea but in Asia and allies, more
broadly.
I mean, it is clearly a different template for negotiating,
at least in the Korean case, the nonpersonnel cost of
stationing U.S. forces in Korea.
You know, someone said the president wants cost plus, which
is very different from what has been negotiated in the past. A
very tumultuous 12 months of negotiation led to this interim
agreement. It is not followed as much here in the United States
but it is followed very carefully in the region.
And the SMA Korea negotiations were watched by Japan. They
were watched by NATO because they are next on the block. These
are not easy negotiations even in the best of times. But I
think these particular negotiations are quite contentious and
it is not clear to me what the ultimate effect will be in terms
of how the allies perceive the United States as we continue to
as for more and more of these allies.
Mr. Richardson. Congresswoman, sometimes I feel that the
U.S.-South Korea relationship is very important. But, if
anything, I would say to this administration, for instance,
they are obsessed with having South Korea pay more for the
military relationship that we have.
We do want to save money, but the U.S. military
relationship with South Korea is in our interest, too, and
sometimes, I will say, the president says, well, they should
pay more. All right, and South Korea is paying a little more.
But that is a very valuable military relationship for us,
not just because of--not just because of North Korea but
because of China and the region.
Second, with Japan, we should be more conscious of Japan's
needs in this security relationship with North Korea. Yes, the
president and the prime minister of Japan have a very good
personal relationship.
But somehow the Japanese government--you can get a briefing
on this--feels that they have been left out of this
negotiation.
Ms. Houlahan. Yes.
Mr. Richardson. China--again, it is a very complicated
relationship we have with China and we absolutely need them to
keep enforcing sanctions or the pressure on North Korea will
deteriorate.
Now, there are some very good, as I mentioned, family
relationship, more investments between North and South. I think
all of that is good--less tension.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
And my last question is, as a member of the Armed Services
Committee as well as this one, I am very concerned about the
suspension of exercises in other committee hearings that I have
had.
The military folks have been also similarly concerned about
how long we can do this and still remain ready and effective.
Do you all have any insight into that as well?
Mr. Cha. So my understanding is that when we go for a full
year without exercising then we are really starting to erode
readiness. There are elements, as you know well, of these
exercises that we can do in other places like Cobra Gold. But
there are certain elements of the exercise that can only be
done on the Peninsula.
So this is something really that has to be considered, you
know, if we are looking to suspend the spring exercises, which
were to start actually this month. If we suspend those again, I
think we really need to think about how we are going to
maintain readiness because readiness is part of deterrence and
that is what has made the Peninsula peaceful since 1953.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
And sir?
Mr. Richardson. I would just add, this was a concession in
the first summit that we got nothing in return. So we should
not concede that one again. Maybe you bring them back, those
exercises, if North Korea is not conscious of doing something
on denuclearization.
They are valuable for South Korea, for the United States,
for our troops. You know, you want them ready in case there is
a misfire or some kind of small conflict that could light up
the whole region.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. That is incredibly helpful,
gentlemen. Thank you very much for your time. I yield back.
Chairman Sherman. The gentleman from Utah is recognized.
Oh, excuse me. No. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is
recognized.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,
for your testimony.
Dr. Cha, what was the United States posture vis-a-vis North
Korea prior to this administration from a hostility/wartime
footing? I mean, I am trying to--I am not trying to evoke--I am
not trying to put words in your mouth but what would you--how
would you characterize our posture vis-a-vis North Korea?
Mr. Cha. Prior to the state of this Administration it was,
I think, popularly known as strategic patience, which was sort
of a medium level sanctions plan with the effort of trying to
bring North Korea to the table to negotiate.
Mr. Perry. And what was North Korea doing under that
posture?
Mr. Cha. They were actively building their nuclear weapons
programs and ballistic missile programs and were on the verge
of testing at the end of--at the end of 2016 and I believe that
those tests would have happened in 2017 no matter who was
president.
Mr. Perry. Right. So they were building, progressing,
testing, and from the--from the United States standpoint, I
think that we were at a posture of considering armed conflict
with North Korea.
But if I am the only one here that thinks that--I mean, do
you get that sense that that is where we were?
Mr. Cha. My sense is that the previous administration was
really focused on sanctioning toward the last--sort of last 12
months in office, were really focused on ramping up the
sanctions campaign, which then the Trump administration took to
an even higher degree.
Mr. Perry. I agree with that. But having--I participated
personally in the military exercises on the Peninsula as a
service member and I was in this house at the time of the last
administration and the conclusion of it and I attended
briefings with uniformed service members who, I would just tell
you, in my opinion, the posture of the United States military
was planning for armed conflict if necessary in North Korea.
And I just want to ask if you dispute that--if you can dispute
that. Maybe that is the best way of putting it.
Mr. Cha. I do not know, Congressman. I mean, I think what
I--what I recognized the most was this effort at building
sanctions on the regime and focusing on more robust exercises.
Mr. Perry. Sure. Sure. But the sanctions were not working,
right? They were still constructing, they were testing, and
they were posturing--the rhetoric, everything, was, in my
opinion--maybe I am wrong so if I am wrong correct me.
But everything we were seeing from North Korea was
bellicose.
Mr. Cha. Yes.
Mr. Perry. Yes. Right? So let me ask you this. Is the fact
that they are not launching missiles out into the ocean and
over Japan and continue with nuclear tests for the last--
essentially, the greater part of the last 2 years, is that--can
that be viewed as a concession or not?
Mr. Cha. It is certainly an important nonevent. Yes.
Fifteen months of no testing of any sort is good for the
diplomatic climate and also makes it harder for them to develop
their programs.
Mr. Perry. Right. Right. So, look, I am not pie in the sky
here and I am not looking, like, through rose-colored glasses.
North Korea is a hostile actor and an enemy of the United
States of America and Western civilization and democracies all
around the world. That is a given, right?
But I think we are at a--you know, I think it is hard to
say objectively that we are not, at this very point, in a
better place from a rhetorical and a wartime footing vis-a-vis
North Korea than we were at the end of the last administration.
I think it is--and there has been a price to pay for that.
Let us just--let us just admit there has been a price to pay
for that.
But I think that Americans right now are sleeping a little
better not wondering if tomorrow their sons and daughters are
going to be called up to go to war on the Korean Peninsula with
potential horrific artillery barrage on Seoul or nuclear
weapons being exchanged across the lines. I mean, is that
reasonably safe to say?
Mr. Cha. Yes. I mean, I think the--this administration's
decision to engage in the summit diplomacy with North Korea has
certainly played a role in their not testing----
Mr. Perry. Right.
Mr. Cha [continuing]. And that has made the situation a lot
calmer.
Mr. Perry. So, because the tenor of the meeting seems to be
that the president has failed. It is more dangerous. We are
giving everything away. We are getting nothing for it.
Look, I do not like dealing with dictators at all. But I
understand they live in the world today and if we are going
to--and if we are going to, you know, try and fix things we are
going to have a discussion with them and I do not remember
anybody on this committee on the other side of the aisle being
too upset when the last administration negotiated with Cuba and
opened up relations with them.
One last question, though, for you, sir. With Asian
diplomacy particular and specifically vis-a-vis other places in
the world, is not the personal relationship key to success in
that as opposed to the tenets of an agreement or the--or the
facts of the matter.
I mean, the relationship is what folks from that part of
the world see as key and building a trusting relationship to
moving forward. Is that true or not true, generally speaking?
Mr. Cha. Yes. I mean, I think if we want a watershed
agreement with North Korea there needs--you need to establish
trust with the only person who makes a decision.
Mr. Perry. And how many meetings has this president has
with that--with President Kim?
Mr. Cha. This is now his second meeting.
Mr. Perry. This is now--so we have--we have one meeting. We
have had one meeting and we are predicating all the rhetoric
here in this committee on one meeting the start. Not the end of
negotiations, like in the JCPOA, but the beginning.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield.
Chairman Sherman. I recognize the gentleman from
California.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to take a little bit of different perspective
than my colleague from Pennsylvania. I do not view foreign
policy and our strategic aims through a lens of partisanship or
one administration or another administration and I would say,
you know, I had my issues with the prior administration--
President Obama and strategic patience, which I did think
eroded some of our strength in that region. You know, I would
point to the South China Sea and the complexity of not
addressing that a bit more aggressively.
I would also argue that, you know, having been on the same
committee, having gone through those same briefings, I do not
think the prior administration was putting us on a war footing.
I do think our troops on the Peninsula constantly are
training, constantly are prepared. For those of us that have
gone to the DMZ and talked to those troops, they are constantly
ready for anything to happen.
I do think 2 years ago this time and even a year and a half
ago the tensions on the Peninsula, the potential of kinetic
conflict, the potential of war was much higher.
I will credit the Trump administration for being willing to
negotiate and, you know, maybe there was a strategic goal there
of increasing those tensions, increasing the possibility of
war, increasing the sanctions, to bring them to the table.
So, I am going to give credit to the Trump administration
just starting a dialog. I have very real concerns that the
outcome of the first summit was, you know, a halting of our
troop preparation, our exercises in the region.
I think we have to continue to maintain a strong posture
there. I am very concerned, and both of you referenced it. We
hear the rumblings of troop reductions, troop withdrawals. You
know, regardless, even if we had a safe peninsula that was
moving forward with denuclearization, the presence of our
troops on the Peninsula served broader strategic importance--
served strategic importance of stabilizing that region.
We have an adversary in China. It serves a strategic
importance in being a check on China's aggressiveness in the
region and I would caution the administration. I would point
out that Congress does have an oversight role here. There are
checks and balances.
Our colleague from Arizona, Mr. Gallego, has in the prior
Congress introduced legislation to--you know, if troop levels
fall below a certain level you have got to come to Congress and
justify that, and I think those are the right steps for us as a
body.
This is going to be a long process and, again, I am not
criticizing the Trump administration. I would rather see
dialog. I would rather see where we are today, where the
atmosphere on the Peninsula is not one of imminent war or
concern but is one of looking at how do you--how do you move
forward.
So both of you, in your opening testimony and, you know, my
sense is let us not set expectations for this summit super high
but let us actually be realistic. And if we can come out of the
summit with that framework and that parameter of what does this
look like, moving forward, in terms of meetings, who is going
to be negotiating--future Chairman and President Trump
negotiations.
Governor Richardson, what would--if you were sitting at the
negotiating table what would success look like to you? And then
I will ask the same question to Dr. Cha.
Mr. Richardson. Well, success for me would be a commitment
by North Korea to dismantle some--some of their weapons,
missiles. I will not get into a number because they vary. WMD--
some tangible dismantling. What else are remaining?
Mr. Bera. Do you think that is realistic out of this
particular summit as opposed to, I guess, success--what a
framework--next negotiating steps would be?
Mr. Richardson. A freeze would be a mild success of
existing testing, weapons, new development. But, in a way,
North Korea has already done that, you know, so you want to
move forward.
Establishing a liaison office is good for both sides.
Dialogue--it would allow, for instance, our inspectors to have
a chance. Our inspectors' verification time lines--that is also
a definition of success. More joint excavations of our remains.
I think Dr. Cha mentioned eventually a discussion on human
rights, religious freedom there. But I think that is more----
Mr. Bera. And since I am going to run out of time let me
just--you know, some of us also think part of the reason why
Chairman Kim is willing to sit at the table now is they have
acquired their nuclear capabilities. They have acquired their
missile capabilities, et cetera.
So now they are not negotiating from a place of weakness.
They are negotiating from a place where they have acquired some
of those capabilities and that is certainly--let us go into
this with our eyes wide open.
Mr. Cha. So I would say that in terms of what would be
success, you know, the key word is verifiability. Whatever the
North Koreans give us, whether it is a couple of sites or
whether it is a promise not to produce more fissile material,
it has to be verifiable, right.
And so they decommissioned some sites after the Singapore
Summit, as Congressman Yoho said, but they did not allow
anybody to verify it. And so that is really the key piece to me
is to see whatever they have put on the table--how small or how
large--it has to be verifiable.
Chairman Sherman. I recognize the gentlelady from Missouri.
Mrs. Wagner. I thank--thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
organizing this hearing and thank you to our witnesses for
their time.
Following up on my friend and colleague, Mr. Bera's, line
of questioning, Dr. Cha, U.S. special representative for North
Korea, Stephen Biegun, who Governor Richardson has spoken so
highly of, has noted that even as United States pursues a
direct leader-to-leader format for the current talks with North
Korea, it is supplementing summit-level meetings with intensive
working-level negotiations.
Do you think this strategy will better ensure the U.S.
walks away from Hanoi with some sort of acceptable deal,
agreement?
Mr. Cha. Congresswoman, I think what--certainly what was
better in process with regard to this summit was that there was
a lead up of intense, as you said----
Mrs. Wagner. Right.
Mr. Cha [continuing]. Working-level negotiations that Steve
Biegun led. The first summit in Singapore, as you remember, was
just an announcement that they were going to meet and there was
no working-level effort.
So those working-level meetings are important to help the
outcome of the summit be successful.
Mrs. Wagner. Not just happening at the summit. Let us be
clear, Dr. Cha. It has been in the lead-up to the summit----
Mr. Cha. Yes.
Mrs. Wagner [continuing]. In a very intensified way, from
what I understand. Is that your understanding?
Mr. Cha. Yes. Yes. And that is--that is the way it should
be done. Yes.
Mrs. Wagner. Great. Wonderful.
Governor Richardson, you have spent decades working through
formal and informal channels in North Korea to secure the
release of American citizens held unjustly by the Kim regime.
Informal exchanges like the relationships you have built
over the last several years can be highly effective in
promoting mutual understanding. How do your efforts support and
intersect with official talks?
Mr. Richardson. I think you asked a question about Special
Envoy Biegun. I think he is very effective. You know, the
administration consults with me. They do not listen, though.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. Wagner. They do not listen to me either.
Chairman Sherman. They do not even talk to me.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Richardson. They do, sometimes.
Mrs. Wagner. I know.
Mr. Richardson. My point here, Congresswoman, is I think
you need, yes, Presidential--the president. That is good.
Personal relationships. But you need the staff work in
preparation for that.
Mrs. Wagner. Right.
Mr. Richardson. And sometimes I wonder, because of the
president's style, that that does not happen as much as it
should. I hope he is listening. I mean, we are going to find
out in 2 days whether this summit is a success or not. He
listens to Envoy Biegun, the Secretary Pompeo, you know, who
has had to negotiate with the North Korean's spy chief ever
since the first summit or before the first summit.
My worry is--and before, I think, you came in I said it is
better to negotiate with the foreign ministry types in North
Korea rather than the intelligence people because they are more
flexible.
We will see what happens in this next summit. We are kind
of hanging on to--for the result.
Mrs. Wagner. But you would agree that both formal and
informal lines----
Mr. Richardson. Absolutely.
Mrs. Wagner [continuing]. Of communication are important,
correct?
Mr. Richardson. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, on
prisoner exchanges.
Mrs. Wagner. Right.
Mr. Richardson. On rescuing American servicemen, on
remains--yes. I mean----
Mrs. Wagner. We thank you for your leadership in that----
Mr. Richardson. Thank you.
Mrs. Wagner [continuing]. In that regard. Russia and China
appear to be weakening on sanctions enforcement, although U.S.
negotiators are working to solidify support in advance of the
Hanoi Summit.
Dr. Cha, how worried should we be about Chinese and Russian
compliance and how can the U.S. convince the international
community to kind of hold the line?
Mr. Cha. So it is--I think it is a real problem,
Congresswoman. Any agreement we make with North Korea has to be
enforceable, and enforceability means also sanctioning if they
violate the agreement, and China holds a lot of cards when it
comes to sanctioning.
I mean, I think the only--the only way to really compel
China to do this is to be willing to secondary sanction--I
mean, to go after Chinese companies that are willfully and
knowingly violating U.S. law. That is the only way to----
Mrs. Wagner. Well, you found that secondary sanctions can
be very effective in that regard?
Mr. Cha. I think--I think they can. They certainly spread
the net of who is responsible when it comes to this. I mean,
China is a U.N. Security Council member so they should be
complying with the 11 U.N. Security Council resolutions with
regard to North Korea on--particularly on trade. But they
really have not been for about 15 months now.
Mrs. Wagner. Well, thank you. I think my time is about to
expire so I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sherman. Thank you. I will recognize myself at
this point. As to denuclearization, I am not sure that we
disagree as to what it means. I think we disagree as to when.
All the signatories of the nonproliferation treaty
including Russia and the United States are on record saying we
look forward to eventually having no nuclear weapons in the
world and I am confident that Pyongyang will denuclearize as
soon as the United States and Russia do so.
As to the change in the level of tension, 2015 and 2016 was
not a period of particularly high blood pressure. We had a
policy of strategic patience. It was not a good policy but at
least it was not a policy fraught with tension.
The tension was in 2017. It has declined since then. As to
a minimal level of success, I think I mostly agree with the
Governor. But I would say that if we had a verifiable halt to
the creation of more fissile material that would mean we were
safer.
If all we have is a halt to testing, well, Kim has said he
has done all the testing he needs. So a new test might not make
us less safe since it would give him the information he already
has or claims to already have, whereas, clearly, a halt to the
creation of new fissile material, if verifiable, would make us
safer.
Dr. Cha, you talk about the importance of human rights. We,
obviously, need to be bringing this up. It is very important to
the North Koreans. One place where they could make a concession
easily is to allow more family reunification visits,
particularly for the 100,000 Korean Americans who have family
north of the 38th Parallel.
Is there any reason why Kim would not make that concession
other than he knows we want it so he would not want to give it
to us? Any disadvantage to him to allowing such family
reunifications with Korean Americans?
Mr. Cha. No. I mean, I think, as you said, that there are
still many divided families as a result of the Korean War. This
could be a very useful humanitarian gesture.
I say useful because, from the perspective of incentives,
there is every reason for him to do it if he wants to have, you
know, a more positive view of the--of himself in the broader--
in the broader press.
But there still needs to be--there needs to be a raising of
the human rights abuses, not just humanitarian issues.
Chairman Sherman. Gotcha.
Mr. Richardson. Congressman, could I just add to that?
Chairman Sherman. Yes.
Mr. Richardson. What North Korea needs more than anything
in terms of investments, it is not necessarily the United
States. It is South Korea. And there is an effort by South
Korea to possibly invest in the railway in North Korea, the
Kaesong joint facility that was shut down.
So my point is that North Korea will want to make strong
family reunification. It is in their interests if they want
this South Korean investment. I mean, it is called politics. It
is something that you are all the experts.
Chairman Sherman. Now, the North Koreans have a
conventional military double the size of South Korea and yet
they are pressuring us to remove some of our 28,000 troops
while, of course, North Korea has almost a million, or to make
those troops less effective by canceling exercises.
I have been told that the long-term North Korean dream is
you get America to withdraw its forces. This makes
international business less interested in investing in South
Korea. That leads to the kind of economic decline in South
Korea that makes unification on their terms possible.
Is there any--how do the North Koreans argue for a
diminution of American forces in South Korea when they have
such a powerful conventional military?
Governor or Doctor?
Mr. Cha. Well, I think it goes along with, and this goes
back to the gap and denuclearization definitions--it goes back
to the way the North Koreans define denuclearization.
They define it as being--their willingness to do this will
be--will happen when the United States is off the Peninsula and
no longer has a security commitment to South Korea. That is
when they consider real--the real concept of denuclearization.
Chairman Sherman. It's good politics in the United States
to announce an end to the Korean War and sign the peace treaty.
All Americans like peace treaties. This would not cause
pressure on the United States to move its forces from South
Korea.
We have a--World War II is over with peace treaties in
Europe and Japan and we had troops in Germany--we have troops
in Japan. So the question is would a peace treaty with North
Korea--it, obviously, is important to them--but it--would it
create pressure in South Korea to expel American troops?
Doctor or Governor?
Mr. Cha. Quickly, I will just say that--yes. Quickly, I
will just say that I think it would start to create a
discussion about the utility of U.S. forces in Korea once a
peace declaration of some sort was made, certainly, among the
progressive camp in South Korea. Maybe less so among the
conservative camp, but certainly among the progressive camp.
Chairman Sherman. OK. And then, finally, Governor, what are
the phony concessions that North Korea can make? Are there
facilities that are no longer useful to them? Yongbyon, I
guess, may have outlived its usefulness. The nuclear weapons
testing facility they destroyed some or all of because it
outlived its usefulness.
What are the things they can give up that sound important
that are not important?
Mr. Richardson. You mentioned the two that are, I think,
most obvious--the Yongbyon facility, this test site where they
blew up I think the sides and they did not allow inspections or
the press there.
Those are what I would expect they will try to get away
with. I just happen to think that if they continue to say, we
are not going to have any testing--nuclear testing, missile
testing--they have already done that. I want them to do a lot
more.
While I am not diminishing that but, this is something that
they have done the last--it is now almost a year. Let them do
more. Again, I agree with Dr. Cha. Verification is essential of
what they do, and I am concerned with one concession that I
sense we may be giving up and that is list all of your sites,
your facilities, and inventory so this can be inspected and
verified, and I sense that we are kind of--may lose that at
this summit.
Chairman Sherman. All the press reports are that we have
given up on that, and that--and with that, I will recognize the
gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to you and
the ranking member for the terrific witnesses here. I thank
both of you for coming. Good to see you, Governor Richardson.
Dr. Cha, I want to start with a question for you about
human rights. The logic behind choosing Vietnam for this
summit's setting seems to be that if Kim sees firsthand
Vietnam's economic success he will want to mirror that success
in North Korea. Or, put another way, he may see an incentive to
denuclearize.
One issue that seems to be missing from this calculus,
though, is human rights. Human Rights Watch reported earlier
this month that, and I am quoting, ``Vietnam's one-party state
severely restricts fundamental civil and political rights and
has stepped up its harsh crackdown on activists and
dissidents.''
Reports indicate that these crackdowns range from arbitrary
arrests of activists to a lack of press freedom to a grossly
unfair legal system. Amnesty International has documented more
than a hundred prisoners of conscience who remain in prison at
the risk of being tortured or ill-treated.
So my question to you is, is there a risk that Kim will get
the message that North Korea can indeed achieve what Vietnam
has and that just like Vietnam he does not need to respect
human rights to do it?
Mr. Cha. Thanks, Congressman. It is a great question.
I certainly hope that is not the message that he will get.
I mean, if anything, I think what would be very useful would be
for the North Korean leader to get a briefing about all the
laws that now exist passed by this body with regard to not just
proliferation but human rights abuses that will make it
impossible for U.S. companies to do any sort of business in
North Korea.
That could probably be the most important thing that could
be told to him that would be incentive for him to try to
address the human rights abuses in the country.
Mr. Levin. I really need to study up on that because I have
noticed a lot of U.S. companies doing a lot of business in
countries with gross human rights violations over the years.
Maybe we have done a better job more recently before I came to
Congress. I think of not--this is not just about Korea or Asia,
you know--in Latin America and Central America and all over the
world, in Africa and so forth.
You mentioned earlier, that the Trump administration has
failed to appoint a special envoy for human rights in North
Korea, which is a requirement set forth in the North Korea
Human Rights Act of 2004. What impact do you think this vacancy
has on the coordination of our larger North Korea policy?
Mr. Cha. So as you mentioned, it is mandated by Congress.
President Bush appointed the first Special Envoy for Human
Rights, Jay Lefkowitz, and then President Obama appointed Bob
King.
I think the most important job--position--role that this
position plays is a leadership role not just here in Washington
but at the United Nations and, indeed, around the world with
regard to getting the international community to focus on the
human rights abuses in North Korea.
One very quick example--last December the U.N. Security
Council did not vote for raising U.N.--North Korean human
rights in the Security Council agenda, which I think was a big
defeat because they had done it previously.
And there is another opportunity this spring, perhaps after
the summit, but it requires U.S. leadership and if we do not
have an envoy and if we do not have a U.N. Ambassador it is
harder to do that.
Mr. Levin. And do you think that this lack of appointing
someone sends a signal to the international community about our
commitment to human rights, more broadly?
Mr. Cha. Well, I think that there are a number of people
around town who have drawn a relationship between the absence
of a human rights envoy and things that are happening in
China--more crackdowns in China--the Uyghur camps in China.
So the United States always has been a beacon for human
rights and human freedom, and we should continue to do so.
Mr. Levin. Thank you very much. I hope we do continue to do
so and I fear that we are not being that beacon right now.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman Sherman. Thank you.
I recognize the gentlelady from Virginia.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you, Mr.----
Chairman Sherman. Oh, and I will point out we will do a
second round, but we will adjourn by 12:20 at the very latest.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So, Dr. Cha, you have written extensively and, Governor
Richardson and Dr. Cha, we have talked extensively today about
undeclared North Korean missile operating bases that may not be
included in denuclearization discussions.
News reports earlier this month described a U.N.--a
confidential U.N. report that North Korea was engaging in what
the intelligence community calls denial and deception
techniques--deliberate efforts to hide their nuclear and
ballistic weapons to prevent U.S. and others from discovering
them.
Dr. Cha, you spoke a bit as well about the idea that any
agreements have to be verifiable. So my question is, given the
denial and deception, how can we ensure that inspectors, given
whatever agreement is made, are gaining access to all of North
Korea's weapons and facilities and operating bases and how can
the U.S. negotiate an agreement that North--with North Korea
that would actually account for any undeclared weaponsites,
development facilities, or operating bases and ensure that we
can verify whatever agreements are made?
Mr. Cha. Well, it requires the president to raise it. I
mean, this is--I think there are things that North Korea will
be willing to put on the table in the discussions over the next
48 hours. But the key condition, I think, for our side to say
that this is useful or successful would be conditions and
protocols for verification.
I mean, once they agree to verification we know how to do
it. The International Atomic Energy Agency knows how to do it.
There are people there who have known these North Korean sites
for years from working on them in the past.
But it requires the president to raise it and for the North
Koreans to agree to it.
Ms. Spanberger. As a former intelligence officer myself--I
am a former CIA officer--I am particularly concerned about what
appears to be a growing disconnect between our political and
intelligence leaders and, in particular, the undermining of
objective nonpartisan intelligence assessment.
So following up on that notion of what is verifiable,
allowing third-party organizations to determine what is in fact
happening on the ground in North Korea and also listening to
our intelligence community assessments based--about what is
happening in North Korea.
Do you have any thoughts about what we, as Members of
Congress, can do to ensure that the White House is, in the
first place, receiving, considering, and then evaluating the
intelligence information and other information that is
available and created to help inform U.S. policy engagement
with North Korea?
Mr. Cha. It is a great question and, again, given your
experience in this area, you know a lot more than I do about
this. I will just say that when we were doing the negotiations
10 years ago, the intelligence briefing that we had every
morning was about the most important information that we could
work from and without it, personally, I felt like we were just
flying blind.
This is the hardest intelligence target in the world. I
think Governor Richardson would agree it is the hardest
intelligence target in the world. But I think our IC--the
intelligence community--has done a remarkable job trying to
gain information not just about their capabilities but their
intentions.
Mr. Richardson. I would just add, Congresswoman, what is
critical is that you and this committee get the best briefings
from our intelligence people. That is No. 1.
And I believe that what the NSA and CIA and DIA the--and I
am concerned about this gap between the White House and our
intelligence people. And, you know, we spent billions on
intelligence--human assets, technological assets, and we should
listen to them.
But I think you, in your role of oversight, should insist
on those briefings. What else would I suggest? You know,
verification inspections are key. The North Koreans will object
if we are the inspectors, I believe--we, the United States.
We should insist on that. Perhaps the International Atomic
Energy Agency--the IAEA, that is involved with the Iran deal in
the past--well, it still is--that that may be part of the
inspections regime.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much to the witnesses.
And to the chair, I yield back.
Chairman Sherman. Without objection, we will recognize a
member of the full committee who is not a member of this
subcommittee but the former chair of the subcommittee, Mr.
Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much.
I apologize, first of all. I was in Judiciary and unable
to--but I definitely wanted to stop by. It is a very important
topic and I will go back and review the questions with my
colleagues and the answers later on.
You know, I have to be very honest about this whole
negotiations and meetings with Kim Jong-Un. He is somebody--he,
being Kim Jong-Un, is somebody--if he is anything like this
father and grandfather and, I think in this case, the apple
does not fall too far from the tree, we have to be extremely
leery of anything he says and, obviously, the president and the
people that he has surrounded himself with, the number-one--the
number-one thing that we have to be focused on is what is in
best interests of the United States and our security--security
of the American people.
Now, diplomacy certainly is better than military
confrontation and I think we were getting closer and closer to
that. I think it was a game changer when we believe that they
had either reached or were very close to having the ability to
land a nuclear device on American soil.
I think previous administrations maybe had somewhat of a
luxury in that we could continue to try to get North Koreans to
back off their nuclear program and we could negotiate on
occasion and we saw that when we had--when we would get
together with them and, in general, we would provide food and
energy resources and in return they would promise that they
were going to back off their program or discontinue it or close
down facilities and we would continue underground full speed
ahead.
Maybe not full speed ahead but they would continue the
programs, maybe not quite as quickly as they would have if they
had not agreed but they moved forward nonetheless.
So I am concerned that that behavior will be repeated here.
That being said, I hope and pray that the president is
successful and that he really will be able to get some behavior
changed in Kim Jong-Un. We cannot predict the future but I
think we all are hoping that that is where we get.
So I guess my question then, after rambling on there for a
couple of minutes, is should we be--should we be in a, like
President Reagan said--he said, obviously, when negotiating
with the Soviet Union, trust but verify?
Is this a--should we be distrust but verify, but
hopefully--I will, for example, as somewhat of a--well, not
somewhat--quite skeptical, will I--am I likely to be surprised
and there really is a possibility here that we will have peace
on the Peninsula and they will denuclearize?
So I would be happy to open it up to either Bill or the
other gentleman here.
Mr. Richardson. Congressman--Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Chabot. Thank you for your years of service here, too.
We--a lot of us, especially those that have been around the
block, it was an--it was an honor to call you a colleague and
you have done great and done wonderful things for our country
all over the globe. So thank you for that.
Mr. Richardson. Well, my answer is I was going to commend
you for your very hopeful and positive statement. I believe we
need to continue these negotiations, even if this next summit
does not appear to bear many results. I am concerned about
that.
But this is the most--this is the tensest region in the
world right now, I believe, with nuclear weapons, with
missiles, with our allies, with our troops--28,000 in South
Korea, 30,000 in Japan.
I think we need to keep talking and dialog, even if we do
not get the results we want at this summit, needs to continue
and regardless of what administration is in power.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you.
Sir?
Mr. Cha. I am--yes, I am uncertain, as you are,
Congressman, of whether we can get to full denuclearization.
But I do know that any steps we take along those paths cannot
simply be promises that are made without verification because
it makes no sense if nothing can be verified.
And in the end, if we take steps along those lines then we
are moving in a positive direction.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate
that, and I want to thank the chair and the ranking member for
allowing me to participate.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Sherman. Thank you.
One thing about sanctions is that if you are dealing with a
democracy you have a little bit of sanctions. You say depress
income in the country by 10 percent--that is a big deal.
It is not a big deal to Kim whether his people are 10
percent richer or 10 percent poorer, and so the problem with
partially relaxing sanctions is that you certainly do not have
regime-threatening sanctions if you go from what I think are
the inadequate sanctions we have now to something even less.
My first question is about the train. Kim flew to
Switzerland when he was a student. He flew to Singapore last
year. He is on a train through China. Why?
Mr. Richardson. Well, first, the maintenance record of
North Korean aircraft is not the best. That is why. Second, you
know, this has been a tradition in his family----
Chairman Sherman. Yes. I mean, his father used to go to
Beijing on an armored train.
Mr. Richardson. He would go to China, Russia, by train. I
have seen that train. You should to go see it. It is in a
museum in Pyongyang. Well, they move it in and out.
But, last, I think it is mainly a security issue and,
symbolically, I think Kim Jong-Un was trying to show that he
went through and he needs China. So he was giving visibility to
China, and I think going to Vietnam is a signal that North
Korea wants to do business outside of China with Vietnam.
Chairman Sherman. We have this image that Kim is in total
power. Yet, I study dictators and none of them are in total
power. If he was in total power he could do whatever he thought
was in the long-term interests of his dynasty.
What restraints are there? What red lines cannot he cross?
What people in Pyongyang cannot he cross? What institutions? Or
is he really that--the thing I have not been able to find in
history and that is the total dictator?
Mr. Cha. It is a great question, Congressman. It is a hard
one to answer, I think. There was a view when he first started
that because of his inexperience he needed to balance different
factions in the party, the military, and, of course, the
family.
But he has since then gone on, as you know well, such a
ruthless purging campaign that I think many experts saw his
trip to--his first trip to China, first time out of the
country, for as long as he was gone as a sign that he really
had consolidated power.
So I think there still is a degree of purging taking place
but, you know, I think relative to when he started he seems to
be in about as secure a position as we could have imagined, you
know, 6 years ago and he does seem to be calling the shots.
Chairman Sherman. If--and this would be my wildest
fantasy--he just goes to Vietnam and gives up his nuclear
program in return for getting the Apple headquarters and maybe
Amazon as well move to Pyongyang--whatever it took--if he were
to do that, and none of us expect it, what repercussions would
he have at home or can he just go back and say, hey, it is time
to be Silicon Valley?
Mr. Richardson. He has total control in North Korea. I
think he is more secure than ever before. His main objective,
Congressman--Mr. Chairman--is--his main objective is to stay in
power, more so than detente with the United States or--stay in
power and I think a source of that is keeping his nuclear
weapons or some of his nuclear weapons.
I think what you suggested may be a little wishful thinking
that he will give it up. But he has said to his people, we have
to improve our economy and, in a way, he said, you know, the
only way we can do that perhaps is--they always want to deal
with the United States.
They would say to me, we should settle things. The U.S. and
North Korea--not China, not Russia, not South Korea. We are the
big guys around here. So I think that is why they are talking.
Chairman Sherman. I am going to make one more comment and
that is the fact that Japan and Korea cannot cooperate is
harmful to the United States' national security and I
recognize--I brought this home to both Korean and Japanese
leaders recently--that they have a certain animosity from the
first half of the 20th century.
But Poland and Germany cooperate and that helps our
national security, and if I had more time I would ask for--you
could respond for the record as to if there is anything we can
do to get these two countries to cooperate on that--on security
matters.
I am going to recognize the ranking member for a limited
time and then I have to go, and I know the witness has to go as
well.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you both, and I think the important thing
is that we look forward where we are going. We cannot worry
about what did not work in the past--I mean, we have to learn
from that--but more forward looking.
The thing that brought North Korea to the negotiating
table--correct me if I am wrong--was the unanimous U.N.
agreement resolution that I think 17 countries placed severe
sanctions on North Korea.
With people pretty much adhering to that--i.e., us, Russia,
China, South Korea--that put enough pressure where they did
come to the table. Since that point in time, we have seen
Russia, China, even South Korea with a transfer of--it was
either coal or petroleum that they said was a mistake--it did
happen and they went after the people, you know, taking that on
good faith.
We have a report, and I do not have the U.N. report--it
will be out later this year--that we have a report of over 148
ship-to-ship transfers from January to August. It was oil at
sea.
How detrimental is that to our negotiations and moving
forward if they start normalizing and allow this to happen, and
then, more importantly, what I would really like to hear from
you your recommendations to us on this committee as a
bipartisan group to where we can hold the administration or
South Korea or China or Russia accountable so that we keep that
maximum pressure on them until we get a clear blueprint of
where we are going and then the verification. I wanted to ask
you real quickly about that. But if you would answer those.
Mr. Cha. So, first, to the chairman's earlier point about
trilateral coordination, for the record, it is absolutely
necessary. We are stronger--the United States is stronger if we
are lined up with our allies, Japan and Korea, for the record.
Mr. Yoho. Sure.
Mr. Cha. On the maximum pressure, diplomacy does not work
without maximum pressure. The president's efforts at diplomacy
will not work without maximum pressure and that--and that
speaks not just--as you said, not just to China but also to
South Korea.
And then the third point is there is a way--if we start to
lift sanctions it will most likely be through South Korea--
South Korea reopening Kaesong Industrial Complex with the
North.
I think where human rights matters there is we can require
the South Koreans to ensure that they can pay the North Korean
workers directly in Kaesong, which would address the human
rights issue and address the desire for----
Mr. Yoho. You know, that came up today in our meeting I
had. How can you pay them directly? I mean, is Kim Jong-Un
going to allow that to happen? I mean, that would have to go
through him and he would have to OK that.
Mr. Cha. Right. Right. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Yoho. If that happens, that would be--I mean, that
would be a huge concession on his part, I would think, to allow
people to actually earn--keep what they earn and put in the
labor.
Mr. Cha. Right. And it would be--for our policy it would be
a huge success if that could happen.
Mr. Yoho. That would be a huge success.
Governor, do you have any thoughts?
Mr. Richardson. Congressman, my sense is that Russia is not
observing sanctions. There is massive violations that----
Mr. Yoho. Oh, terrible.
Mr. Richardson [continuing]. The site of the border there,
the port. Victor, what is the name of that port where the--
China has--Russia has a short border.
Mr. Yoho. Yes.
Mr. Richardson. So----
Mr. Yoho. I know where you are talking.
Mr. Richardson. Russia needs to get tougher and they are
not doing it. I think these U.N. sanctions were the strongest
that we have ever had. A lot of it has been working and it is
essential that China continue the sanctions.
But the cross-border contraband, the verification----
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Richardson [continuing]. There is key. I always found
that the most effective sanctions, and I think this was in the
Bush Administration on North Korea, were banking sanctions on
their banks and how--I think there is some of that left.
But the sanctions that have, I think, bitten--that bite the
most have been the coal, the uranium, the oil sanctions that
are imposed now by the U.N.
Mr. Yoho. Right. But, yet, China and Russia are cheating
and so what we wanted to do is go after the bigger banks, the
bank of--the construction bank, their agriculture bank--the big
ones. That would really hurt China.
And so we are going to followup on our letter to the
Treasury Department through this administration, and I guess we
are at a point to demand why are these not taking place.
Because if we put that pressure on China and Russia they will
come to the table and I see China as just--they are insecure
because they fear North Korea becoming more like South Korea.
But, yet, if they look at the world overall, we are their
largest trading partner and they are going to benefit hugely
from this. But they are intimidated by success, I guess, of an
open society.
And then you brought up, and I agree with you, what would--
the inspectors. I do not think they need to be U.S. inspectors.
They just need to be verifiable inspectors that we have the
faith in that they carry this out. And you are in agreement
with that, right?
I am out of time. He has got to get to a meeting. Thank you
both.
Chairman Sherman. I want to thank our witnesses and my
colleagues, and I look forward to exploring this further.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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