My name is cody i will be introducing tonights guest speaker. A few notes before we get started will be excellent if everyone could silence their cell phones and any other Electronic Devices they may have. We will also be using microphones for tonights q a after the presentation we also have cspan recording so it would be excellent if somebody could use the microphones for any questions they might have so we can have audio track. If you like to purchase a copy of tonight but we have plenty on hand in the front register to be purchased. Tonights guest speaker is chung min lee, author of the hermit king the dangerous game of kim jongun. By tracing the rise of the qing dynasty and illuminating how the families record a brutal control has shaped the current leader motivations goals and choices. Drawing on more than three decades in asian and affairs experience. It shows how quick kims aggressive standoff in world powers has become a crossroads. Whether north korea creates a viable Nuclear Arsenal but in Countries Increasing vulnerability to famine and humanitarian crisis in the region please join me in giving doctor lee a warm welcome. [applause] its a real pleasure to be here and i know that without my friends i would have had a very different audience. Its a real pleasure to be here at politics and prose. I think the people who are most responsible for making me write this book, the two of them are sitting in the audience. My very good friend phil rosenau and chip rogers. The reason why i wrote this book and came out on november 5 as i wanted to tell the north korean story to the american audience. I think for most americans north korea is a major issue the north Korean Leader is considered to be somewhat of a very different leader. President trump, as you all know, has fallen in love with this guy. You ask yourself how does donald trump managed to fall in love with kim jongun and then hoping that he will ultimately deem nuclear eyes. Ive been studying this 30 years and there were many people are good ones with different books on north korea and i asked myself why should i write one more . I think part of the reason is because as someone who was born in korea but raised in 10 countries and having lived and studied in the u. S. For many years i wanted to connect with the broader american audience. As i recall as i was sitting at bills house in the summer of 2017. They were missiles going back and forth and trump was telling the world. Ive got a Bigger Nuclear button then kim jongun and kim jongun said i will blow up the white house. It went on. People were very scared and i know friends back in south korea, American Samoa preparing for some type of an exit if there was a major crisis. So it took me until the summer of 2017 the book was published last week. One of the key message i want to get from this book and i guess there were a number of motivations for me and the first is that i wanted to describe, not just kim jongun in the top leadership but to give the American People a sense of what the regime was about and you hear snippets from cnn or fox news and you see this guy with the funny haircut with Nuclear Weapons but its also a very poor country yet most people who are not really specialists dont really know all that much about north korea. I wanted to give a broader picture. I think for me as a korean and today being veterans day, as you recall, 38,000 americans died in the korean war. That broke up in 1950¥3. I remember several years back i wrote i, i think in the wall street journal, commemorating the korean war i said, imagine an 18 or 19yearold guy from milwaukee has never been out of his state spends a couple weeks, several weeks training and shipped off literally to this no mans land and lands in korea in the middle the winter when its really cold. And ask himself what is this guy doing. He mustve asked himself what the heck am i doing in this land where i have no recollection of even hearing about it and yet nearly 40,000 americans die. I think they died for a reason which was in a nutshell preserving liberty and democracy. As i guess lightweight as those words may sound particularly these days, i sincerely believe that they did give their lives for a bigger cause. One reason is amongst all the countries where American Forces actually spill their blood after world war ii i would argue that korea is the only one that has become a martin economy and democracy and a thriving American Partner as the Worlds Largest economy. In a way i guess im coming back full circle because my father who is 92 years old spent part of his years in the korean war and then brought back a number of korean officers to be trained here in the u. S. In the middle of the korean war. I still have pictures of him as a young lieutenant and later a captain at fort benning in georgia. My idea was, how can i tell the story to both koreans back at home and in the north as well as to americans. So whats at stake why is korean so important and why is north korea so important . First of all because you dont want another bloody korean war. That something i think the americans are trying very hard to prevent by having 28,000 American Forces in the rok. North korea is not just with Nuclear Weapons. She has icbms, biochemical weapons, submarine launched ballistic missiles. Cyber weapons. If the only country in the world i would argue that has a comprehensive Department Store attitude toward military threats everything from az and thats what north korea has. I wanted to show the book that, yes, the rok is worth preserving for these reasons. The second goal thats at stake is because regardless of how this whole thing comes up i hope there will be unified korea and this year 2019 november, as you know, is the 30th anniversary of the dawn fall of the berlin wall. Remember going to berlin in 1990 as a young man working at a think tank in korea at the time and east germany was still around germany was not unified. I asked myself, at what point will they be unified if they do . The big difference is, i think, german aoccurred when the soviets were on their knees and if and when korean adoes come by it will happen when the chinese are at the apex of their power. So you have a very different geopolitical environment. Lastly i think the rok is, in my humble opinion, a very pivotal u. S. Ally. If you look at map of asia or eurasia for that matter on the far end of asia and the asian continent the only place where you have American Forces boots on the ground is in korea. So you have 20,000 American Forces in south korea with an air force contingent and very small naval footprint so that they serve not only to determine north korea but over longer to my argue constraining the absence of the chinese. Going back to hermit king i wanted to ask myself, if i had a talk to someone who doesnt know north korea, what are the three or four takeaways i would like to have on the audience . The first is to give the in impression that kim jongun is not about food. He comes across as a different type of leader. He was born in 1983. Ever since he was born into the kim family, he was groomed to be either the next great leader or one of the key princes in the kim dynasty. You have to imagine how this psychology of the regime is. In 1948 when north korea was founded by his grandfather kim ill song he was planted by the soviets. His son kim abecame a leader when his son died in 1984. When kim jongil died in 2011 his son took over. It was a prayer that way because kim jongil had three sons, number one son came from his first wife he had four wife. He had a second son who was the older brother of the current leader kim akim jongun. And then kim john jan and then his younger sister. So in korea bloodlines are really important. If youre born from another mother would have the same father, the mother is really compete of who will be the next great leader. In this particular case kim jonguns mother made sure, although she also passed away, that her son would be in the running and in a way, life was made easier for her because number one son, who ultimately was fascinated by kim jongun in 2017, he visited Tokyo Disneyland in 2001 under a different passport. He came as a Dominican Republic citizen with his wife and nanny. And his young son. So he was caught at the airport carrying bundles of cash so the japanese got this guy and until then the number one son was considered to be the crown prince and the guy who would be the next king. His chances were basically gone in tokyo. As soon as he came back kim he looks at the world and sees china the worlds second largest economy come up biggest patron is like the worlds most dynamic economy his arch enemy south korea across the border is a flourishing market economy and vibrant democracy. His second arch enemy japan is a world Third Largest economy and his real arch enemy is across the pacific. All of his enemies are doing really well economically. He wants to transform north korea but how could you do that . Thats the dilemma. The only way he can is to finesse china by opening up korea. The moment he opens it up you bring in information, capital, technology, people began to ask questions and then his legitimacy begins to crumble. Although he wants to become the next ain my view at all pickets can happen. The dilemma over time would be progress stronger. In my book i also talk about all North Koreans have avatars and if you have seen the movie by James Cameron avatars its where you have a body double who actually is a real life avatar. In north korea, since it is the most highly monitored and surveilled city in the world, country in the world, when you are three months old, for example, all children who are through mental heartache into state nurseries and then of course they come back later on but even kindergartners are told these marching songs. If you kill five americans how many are left . Thats the type of problems they will give you. If you are culture at that age to basically give this type of loyal to the regime you are thinking about one thing, which is you dont want to get caught talking bad about the leadership. In the book i describe the socalled 10 commandments that every north korean must memorize by heart to make a long story short, the 10 commandments and north korea says, anything that you do must be because of the great generosity of the great leader. When you see north korean propaganda one of the most disturbing is ones i saw that i describe the book, from national geographic, there are hundreds of North Koreans in this big gymnasium. They are sitting down and they all have cataract operations. In north korea because the medical system is gone, is tapered off, its almost impossible to get good medical care. In the front row you have a young lady in her 20s and her doctor comes up, who is maple leaves, with his assistant, he takes the bandage from her head and then says open your eyes. This young woman sees for the very first time. In a normal family he would get up and say, gosh dad, mom, thank you, doctor, whatever. The father basically holds his daughter and then the next nanosecond the father says, i praise the great leader for this gift. There is a huge portrait of kim jongun abso the daughter and the father go in front of the picture and the bow 90 degrees. With tears flowing down their cheeks and saying, oh great leader, thank you so much. Everybody is like clapping in unison. Of course deep down inside shes a 22, 23yearold girl with her own ambitions. But she can only say those things when she confides in her siblings or closest friends. In a way, although all North Koreans have avatars, it really is the fact that its a different personality. There are about 30,000 north korean defectors in south korea today from all walks of life. You would think coming to freedom will be a lot easier. But in fact its not. Since you are used to a particular lifestyle for 20 to 30 years until you deflect. When they come to korea there left in society and simply cannot adjust to the temple of modern life. Like getting a job you have to go out and apply for one. The party doesnt tell you youll be a street cleaner, you will go to abin north korea they tell you what school to go to and what he will major in and what graduate what job you will go get. There really is much of a personal individual initiative in that sense. Thats why try to show in the book. One of the most harrowing aspects of north korea and the book i give an example of the fact that there are at least four gulags and up to 200,000 North Koreans are incarcerated in these jails. One of the most persuasive things i look at it north korea is the personality cult. We think of a personality cult you may think hitler or stalin or maybe london if you go back a little more. But in north korea the person surrounding the great leader, kim jongun and his family, its like nothing youve ever seen. I think a few weeks ago you may have seen pictures of kim jongun riding a white horse going on top of one of the most the holy grail of north korea mockup two. Legend has it that his father kim jongil was born in utwo in 1941 and it was a cloudy day he was born in a log cabin. Like lincoln. The skies parted and disarray of son just went right into his house and he was born. In reality, he was born in russia. Everything about the great leader is all made up so one of the Great Stories i saw was i think there are two golf courses in pyongyang the capital. In kim jongil abkim jongun went to play golf. The first time he ever got his hands on a golf club he had four holes in one. It was so good that he told the club master lessons on how to play golf. So when kim jongun visits like this orphanage in front of this orphanage is blue a big banner with a big red star in the red star is where the great leaders stood and there is a narrow that tells you where he went in the orphanage. An important one particular place there is a chair that is cased in a glass box because he sat in that chair. Im sure there are some people in this audience, gosh if i could live like that that could be a pretty fun life, but thats only for the very very a the vast majority of North Koreans are of course doing much more poorly. So what i wanted to end up talking about is what would happen in north korea . One thing i know is not can happen is despite president trumps bromance with kim jongun, hes not going to give up Nuclear Weapons. Why . Because north korea saw what happened to Saddam Hussein and lydias qaddafi and they think. Those guys had Nuclear Weapons the americans wouldve never had attacked them. They believe that with Nuclear Weapons you have Regime Security and with Nuclear Weapons you are able to awith the enemy so why give them up . In the end, like all states for example, in the killing fields in cambodia as you recall where 1. 5 even more cambodians were killed by the khmer rouge. Many thought the khmer rouge would last forever but they didnt. In north korea today whats happening is ironically you have a number of de facto market economies drop north korea called the a why . In the 1990s you had a massive feminine up to 2 million North Koreans died so the ration system basically melted away all North Koreans had to fend for themselves so this generation the millennials of north korea i believe are going to change north korea from the bottom up. Why . There indoctrinated they dont give a darn about the regime or great leader and ngo and south korea did a number of videos with defectors including younger North Koreans. She said, when i first heard of kim jongun who will become our next leader she thought he was full of bleak. Thats a reaction you would not expect from the average north korean. You would think, how could you be so antiregime this is why i think over time once more information seeps and wants more money flows in once the regime is unable to control every nuance and simple citizens, things have to change. Thats my hope but managing north korea is of course very very crucial. Because god forbid if there is another war, there will be millions of casualties, not only in north and south korea but also involving perhaps the americans and the chinese. Maybe i will stop here and take questions from the audience. There is a particular aspect that you want me to elaborate i would be more than happy to. Anyone . If you do not foresee an inclination toward a market economy or an evolution in that direction, what must be the forces that will sustain the status quo and in what way might the economies survive under those . Thats a great question. North korea today, although very difficult to get a clear sense. If you go to pyongyang which is the capital its in more respects a modern city because its the model city for north korea. What kim jongun wants as he wants to make north korea rich without opening up north korea to foreign audience. How many of you think do north korea think do you think they have cell phones . Actually, north korea others 25 million North Koreans, we estimate between 7 million to 9 million cell phone users. However, they dont have wifi. They can only make domestic calls. But north korean apps are in the north Korean App Store which look really similar to apple. So they download this stuff in the Exchange Information and to your point, they arent able to see the benefits of modern technology . In these chong midtones or de facto market economies. Almost 90 of the consumer goods come from china. You call for a rice cake in exchange for shampoo. Then move to the next stall. Why they allow this because as i said, the ration system basically doesnt exist. If you cant feed your people then at least they must fend for themselves but the irony of that is as more of these mar