The book was widely sold and is said to have highly influence the cause of abolition. A historian and author will be our guest to discuss the book. Watch books that shaped america, featuring narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, life at nanticoke p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. Also, be sure to scan the qr code to listen to our companion podcast, where you can learn more about the authors of the book featured. Books featured. Victor cha, former National SecurityCouncil Asian affairs director, and others, testified on security challenges on the Korean Peninsula, the recent meeting between Vladimir Putin and kim jongun, the nuclear is asian efforts, and chinas role in the region. From the Senate Foreign relations subcommittee, this is about an hour and 15 minutes. Welcome, everybody. This meeting of the Senate Foreign relations subcommittee on east asia, the civic, and International CyberSecurity Policy will come to order. I would like to begin by thanking senator romney, Ranking Member romney, and members of the committee, for being here. Senator ricketts, as we discussed security and other challenges facing the Korean Peninsula, and u. S. Interests and the role in the region. We are grateful to be joined by three experts in this area dr. Victor cha, mr. Scott snyder , and ms. Jenny town. Im going to introduce each of them more fully in a minute. Despite the passage of 70 years since the end of the korean war, lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula remained elusive, and security concerns stemming from this conflict continue to echo far beyond the region. The alliance between the republic of korea and the United States, forged in mutual sacrifice seven decades ago, remains a key linchpin for peace and prosperity in east asia, and as we have reaffirmed in recent months, the u. S. Commitment to this alliance is ironclad. In april, President Biden welcome south korean president yoon for a visit in which the two leaders unveiled the washington declaration to reinforce extended deterrence and respond to north koreas growing nuclear threats. That same month, senator romney and i and our colleagues passed a Bipartisan Senate resolution to honor the 70th anniversary of our historic alliance, and president yoon also addressed a joint session of congress. In august, President Biden posted a historic summit, and deepened our trilateral cooperation to bring greater peace, prosperity, and security to the indo pacific region. I support the efforts of these leaders to heal old wounds, look for the future, and address shared challenges. This Trilateral Partnership will help to counter the trilateral threat in north korea, to share data on north Korean Missile launches the end of this year. I also commend the strong later language issued in response to the p. R. C. Aggression in the South China Sea. This is an historic moment in the u. S. Alliance, one we can build on to confront a range of security and economic challenges. None of those challenges is of course prudents war against one of those challenges is of course putins war against ukraine. Autocrats across the globe, including xi jinping in china and kim jongun in north korea, or paying close attention to the collective response of the United States and our allies, and will draw lessons based on that response. Kim jongun has been seeking to leverage russias need for a supply of basic munitions to gain access to russias advanced missile technology. At the u. N. Two weeks ago, president yoon vowed that south korea and its allies will not stand idly by, and we must not. I look forward to recommendations from our witnesses as to what we can do together. But among the steps we should take is to better enforce the existing u. S. And International Sanctions against the dprk, including the provision of the bipartisan Otto Warmbier act, which i authored a couple of years ago that took effect in 2019. That law put additional teeth into the sanctions regime, applying secondary sanctions against foreign banks and entities that violate them. The sanctions regime has been subject to a lot of leakage. In fact, the United Nations has identified a variety of schemes the dprk is using to evade those sanctions. And some of the firms that are aiding and abetting them in that effort. North koreas theft of cryptocurrency to fund illegal weapons programs is another area we must monitor and crackdown on. We must also do more to shine a light on the hermits human rights abuses taking place in north korea. The dprks increasing alignment with russia and china raises other concerns that we will discuss as we go forward. There are many other areas where we have to coordinate our efforts with south korea, including covering the p. R. C. s economic coercion, prohibiting export of cuttingedge technologies that can enhance chinas military technology, and the need for the United States and south korea to work with other countries in the region to support our goal of a free and open indo pacific. Have a lot of ground to cover today. For introduce our witnesses, let me turn it over to senator romney for his Opening Statement. Senator romney . Sen. Romney thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you to members of this panel for being here. I have met at least one of you before, but others of you, i have followed by virtue of your expertise, and appreciate your willingness to testify here today and provide your perspective and experience. I apologize in advance for having to leave at 3 20. I have another engagement that i unfortunately will have to run to attend. But i am deeply interested in this topic. I would underscore the significance of the 70 years as an anniversary of the korean war. Dear friends of mine served in that war, in that conflict. And my heart is moved by the sacrifice made by many of the people of your nation excuse me, of the south korean nation as well as our nation, who have served together to provide for the security that now exists in south korea. I recognize, and we all do, that the korean war was at the outset of the cold war, and in some respects we are facing another cold war today. Not with the former soviet union so much as with an assertive china. At the outset of those things, our circumstances are different. One is that the rok has been an extraordinary technological leader and economic powerhouse. It is hard to imagine a place which is more technologically advanced than south korea, that provides more products to the world than south korea. And has fought well above its weight class in the world of Economic Affairs and in geopolitics, which is greatly appreciated here and by other nations around the world. At the same time, north korea has become, at least in my view, more belligerent and more malevolent in the last year or two. We are seeing that not only with aggressive actions with their missiles, but also with various flights and so forth that are threatening, and of course with north korea indicating a potential to provide weapons to russia in their invasion of ukraine. I am concerned about the fact that south korea has a Nuclear Neighbor to its north with a massive investment in conventional as well as nuclear arms, and at the same time does not have a Nuclear Capacity of its own. I would presume if i lived there i would be disturbed by that lack of balance, and would be wondering how that could be remediated. So i look forward to hearing your perspectives on these matters. I share the chairmans deep conviction that it is critical that our nations remain closely aligned, that we combine our support with the support of other nations in the region japan, obviously, in particular. And that association, i would like to get your perspective on as well. With that, mr. Chairman, we will turn to your questions, and we will be able to hear ultimately from our panelists. Sen. Van hollen thank you, senator romney, for those remarks. Now going to introduce more fully our three witnesses. Thank you all again for joining us. We have victor cha, Senior Vice President for asia and korean chair at the center for strategic and international studies, and also the distinguished professor of government at georgetown university. He was appointed in 2021 by the Biden Administration to serve on the defense policy board in as an advisory role to the secretary of defense. From 2004 two 2007, he served on the National Security council and respond from 20042007, he served on the National Security council. He was the delicate at Six Party Talks and received two Outstanding Service commendations during his tenure at the nsc. The author of seven books, twotime fulbright scholar, and currently serves on an Editorial Board of academic journals, along with many other compliments and expertise. Thank you, dr. Cha, for being here. Scott snyder is a senior fellow for korea studies and director of the program of u. S. Korea policy at the council of Foreign Relations. Prior to joining the council on Foreign Relations, mr. Snyder was senior associate of the International Relations program of the asia foundation, where he founded and directed the center for u. S. Korea policy, and served as the asia foundations rep presented in korea from 2000 to 2004. He was also a senior associate at the forum center for strategic and international studies. He has worked as an asia specialist in the research and studies program of the u. S. Institute of peace, and as acting director of the Asia Societys contemporary affairs programs. He was a pantech visiting fellow at georgetown universitys Research Center in 2005 and 2006, and received a fellowship in 19981999 by the Social Security research council. Again, thank you, mr. Snyder, for being here to share expertise. Jenny count is a senior fellow at the stenson center and director of the 38 north program. Her expertise in north korea, u. S. Dprk relations, u. S. Rok alliance, and the northeast asia Regional Security is well known and established. She was named one of the groundbreakers of 2020, 50 women changing the world, and one of the most creative people in business in 2019 for her role in cofounding and managing the 38 north website, which provides policy and Technical Analysis on north korea. Ms. Town is also an expert reviewer for freedom houses freedom in the world index, where she previously worked on the human rights in north korea project. She served as the assistant director of the u. S. Korea institute at Johns Hopkins school of international studies. Ms. Town, welcome and thank you very much for being with us. Let me now turn it over to you, victor thank you, chairman van hollen, Ranking Member romney and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Im going to use my time to reflect on two recent and important developments with regard to security on the Korean Peninsula. From a us perspective. One of these is positive and one of these is negative, the positive developments relate to the vast improvement. As senator romney suggested in his comments in trilateral relations between the United States, japan and south korea. The scope of agreements reached at camp david really are impressive and unprecedented. And it leads me to ask sort of why did this happen . Why did these three allies come together . And i think there are five reasons. The first is that the external security environment has compelled a much higher level of Cooperation Among the allies to put it bluntly, the war in europe really has changed everything, not just in europe, but also in asia, the unthinkable such as war in the Taiwan Strait or on the Korean Peninsula has now become possible and leaders are looking for ways to try to create more certainty and more stability. A second factor is chinas increasingly assertive behavior in the east china sea, in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Straits that has created much more uncertainty in the minds of leaders in asia. When you couple that with the war in europe, a third factor bringing the three allies together, of course, is north koreas unceasing icbm and weapons of mass destruction campaign. In the past months, north korea has tested its First Successful solid propellant nuclear icbm and this campaign shows no signs of abating any time soon. And the fourth factor contributing to the success of trilateral is south korean president yens efforts at improving relations with japan. The south korean president basically took what would be the hardest Foreign Policy issue domestically and pushed forward even when initially, it was not being reciprocated by tokyo. So the significance of this trilateral cooperation cannot be underestimated when the United States, japan and south korea are together, each is safer and each has a stronger ground upon which to deal with china. While camp david has been a positive development for security on the Korean Peninsula. The negative development relates to the budding relationship between north korea and russia. It is not new in the sense that there has always been cooperation between pyongyang and moscow. But there are a few elements that are new. First, the north Korean Leader arguably has leverage in the relationship for the first time. In recent memory, putin needs fresh supplies of ammunition and shells from north korea to prosecute this unjust war in ukraine. And that gives kim jong un a lot of leverage. Second, the kim putin summit reduces kims need to talk to the United States. It is noteworthy that the Biden Administration has stated its interest in re engaging in dialogue with north korea with no preconditions as to the results of those talks. This to me is a subtle but significant change that suggests greater flexibility in the us position. However, the prospects of such talks i think are even less likely because of the putin kim summit. Indeed, i believe that part of the reason for kims engagement with putin is because of the spectacular failure and the inability to recover from the era of summit diplomacy with the Previous Administration in the United States. The only way the north Korean Leader could save face with regard to that was to come out of the covid lockdown and seek a major summit with either xi jinping or putin. And he got his summit with putin. Im concerned that this summit meeting could result in substantial and significant Russian Support of north koreas weapons programs. To put it bluntly, the north Korean Leader would not have traveled all the way to russia simply for a food for munitions deal. Kim is looking for russian assistance with his Nuclear Weapons program, with his military satellite program, a Nuclear Powered submarine and his icbm program. The summit will likely lead to more dprk forced labor being sent to russia. Weve just done a report looking at russia and china who have been major perpetrators of north korean human rights abuses. There are several options for how the United States should respond to this and ill just highlight a few of the full list is in my written testimony. The first is to seek coordinated responses in form of sanctions through the g7 plus and the nato a p four venues. It is no longer possible to seek action on north korea through the un Security Council. Given russia and chinas opposition. Second consider a new declaratory policy to neutralize dprk icbm launches including the possibility of preemptive action. This is a risky policy but it would be aimed at deterring further testing by dprk. Third consider south korean lethal assistance to ukraine. South korean president yun has stated that north koreas provision of lethal assistance to russia is a direct threat to south koreas security. South korea thus far has provided humanitarian assistance and indirect lethal support through third parties like poland and the United States fourth consider enhance south korea cooperation with a should russia provide Nuclear Submarine technology to north korea . This might be consid