This is hosted for north korea and japan, marc knapper. All right, good morning, everyone in d. C. , good evening everyone in korea, good day to everyone around the world. Im mark lippert, host of the cs csis, and by kia motors. And secretary pompeos trip to northeast asia and the implication for north korea. 1010 marks party day in north korea. And the development in the disappearance of the dprk ambassador to rome who is now in south korea apparently. As well continuing developments in the reporting shooting death of the south koreaen minister apparently at the hands of the north koreans. And a new vice ministerial. Our next guest and frequent guest is giving us insights into this. And he and everyone knows well, Deputy Assistant secretary for korea, marc knapper, refresh the highlights, Director Office of Japanese Affairs at the state department, director of Indian Affairs and multiple assignments throughout asia with language skills, excuse me, korean, japanese, and vietnamese and of course my favorite title of all time, representative to the spent fuel team at the facilities. And sadly, dinos running the regular season at kbo, and marc, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. Turning to our regulars, at georgetown, head of the csis chair program. And former director at nsc, bush two and victor, new coffee mug, good stuff. And last but not least, former cia, former nsc, taught at columbia as well, sue, i see victors book, i see the coffee mug. Looking good. All right. Welcome back to the program. Lets get to it. This week secretary pompeo traveled to japan, originally slated to also stop in korea, i believe mongolia and those were put off for later dates. The japan trip held. Two highlights from the trip and i want to ask mr. Napper about that. First, meeting with the new japanese Prime Minister and also a meeting with the quad in tokyo at the foreign minister level with the indians, australians, japanese, and of course, us as well, the United States. So, marc, lets take these in turn. Your impressions from the suga meetings, what are the take aways for the u. S. Japan Alliance Going forward . First off it was a pity the secretary couldnt continue on with his whole program to, as you said, both seoul, but everything going on with the president s health, i think, regrettable, but certainly understandable. I hope he had to reschedule. And as you said he made it to tokyo, significantly he was able to meet with the new japanese Prime Minister, we had a great relationship with him as cabinet secretary. And when he was cabinet secretary, he met with vicepresident pence and met with secretary pompeo. This was a chance to build on a relationship that was already solid and really, the new Prime Minister is a devotee of the alliance and someone who is very committed to ensuring that the u. S. Japan relationship remains the cornerstone of both of our policies in the region and were looking forward to deepening this relationship in the months ahead. As for the quad, it was the second time we met at the foreign minister level. And the time that we had the indian and foreign minister flying in and we had to see it go forward, but it was a pretty grueling schedule and i think the secretary spent 20 hours on the ground before turning and coming back here. For us, the quad, it really does represent, i think, an understanding among our four countries about the need for democracies, liberals, and the economies such as ourselves to get together and discuss our shared values, to discuss our shared interest, to discuss ways in which we can cooperate and address the challenges in the region and around the world. Marc, thanks for the excellent readout. Since this show is focused on korea and also northeast asia and asia at large and political issues and geopolitical issues. What should the koreans take ago way from this . What shutdown seoul take away from this . What comes to mind is seoultokyo relationships . I think that the Prime Minister recognizes the importance of instructive and productive relationships between our countries, the trilateral relationship. And what we share is meeting the north korea challenge. I would fully expect Going Forward the Prime Minister will work with us, work with the republic of korea on our shared challenge with pyong yang. At the same time were looking for other areas where we can cooperate. Its important for us, again, to realize we share values and we share goals and hopefully as we proceed, seoul and tokyo will find a way to address our issues in a way that does respect the past, but does pave the way to a brighter future. Do you sense any opportunity for improving ties or improving trilateral relations between the nations in the wake of the Prime Minister and b, secretary pompeos trip to the region . The tri lateral relationship was among the topics that the secretary raised not just with the Prime Minister, but the former minister. And the new slate, new leader, that doesnt always present opportunities. We have to be skillful how we deal with it. Certainly, a lot of our efforts to work with our partners in the region arent always on the front page of the news, we try to be discrete when we deal with these matters, but we definitely see opportunities to try and improve things. I think we were all heartened by the very warm exchange of greetings between president moon and the new Prime Minister, and so, you know, well start here and see how things go. Okay, thanks, mark for that really interesting take. Victor, i want to come to you on the trilateral and seoul talk yo piece. Well get to you in a second. Ill come back to you on the quad. I am on this basket of issues, seoul, tokyo, trilateral relationship. Sure, so, mark, you know, mark is being diplomatic because hes a diplomate. This relationship is about as bad as, you know, i wrote a book on this, its about as bad as its ever been, unfortunately. And i do think that theres an opportunity with a new Prime Minister. You know, abe, i dont think ever intended for the relationship to be bad. You know, he spoke about korea in his first speech in the United States, it was actually at csis. You know, he did his best on the deal. And i think he wanted to build relations with korea, but so much stuff happened and he ended up being just i mean, he as the Prime Minister just became an obstacle to any possible improvement of relations, the fact that suga is now there and even though hes almost live like abe 2, the personalities changed. Pompeo was in tokyo and trilateral, thats important that that happened. So the president , it was good, and it was good that they made statements with sugas positive forward looking, but i think the main thing, they have to see the u. S. Has to see this improved relations as important even its not conducive to any sort of improvement in interkorean relations, i mean, theyre focused like a laser on interkorean laser and peace regime stuff in the year and a half that they have left. In fact, president moon spoke at another event last night the primary thing he talked about, the only thing he talked about was a peace declaration, and so and so we have to think about, cannot see trilateral and seoultokyo relations as being irrelevant to that goal. If thats the goal theyre after, they need to understand that this is important. You know, in their effort to achieve that goal. You have to get concensus with everybody in thats the goal you want to achieve and i think thats, you know, thats sort of the primary dilemma right now. They see no need for it because they dont see it as conducive to the goal theyre trying to achieve. Which is this declaration. Excellent insight and analysis and you also teed up and teased our interkorean topic that will come here shortly. Before we get to that, quad, you gave the overview to lay down discussions about values, importance that these other Foreign Ministers came to tokyo to engage in a really important dialog at a critical time. In the background briefing on, i think it was on the return trip by the secretary, there were quotes from Senior State Department officials on background who talked about the secretary would move to institutionalize this framework. Two questions here, what does that mean in terms of institutionalizing and what can we expect to see Going Forward from this . Thanks. Well, just a brief history of the quad. I am ooh im, it started in 2004 as our countries cooperated in the boxing day, the september 26th tsunami in the ocean and i think the recent waxing has been a result of the recognition that our four countries do Share Interests and values. So, really, when we talk about institutionalizing it, i think it means to regularize it and come up with meetings at various levels not just the foreign minister, but lower levels, but also to come up with Something Like a work plan which would include a number of cooperative efforts whether its security, whether its infrastructure development, about its Traditional Development assistance, whether its in the energy sphere, connectivity, road building, that kind of thing. And so, you know, were its still early and its still meant, i think, to be sort of envisioning a fabric that would connect all of us throughout the region and to perhaps the question youve got about other participation. I mean, the quad was never meant to be exclusive. Its not meant to be insular and keep others out, rather, i think its meant to have other countries aspire to join countries that do share the values of those that are currently involved. And so i think well see, well see how it goes from here. But very positive mood, i think, coming out of tokyo and all four of our capitals are commit today make this work. Outstanding, mark, appreciate the answer there. Like victor you beat me to the spot and kia is a for the nba as well and let me ask a followup on that. The many of the issues that you talked about, shared values, theres also, in the quad readout, there as a lot of talk that seems to dovetail with the rock southern policy towards southeast asia. You know, is this something that the state department is encouraging the koreans to take a look at . And i only footnote this by just a bit of a similarity between tpp and other institutional frameworks in the region. I think that the koreans were interested and then tpp sort of in a hurry came together and there was, i think, you know, a moment where the koreans felt that they might be outside looking in. Is this something that the state Department Might be talking to the koreans about, hey, get in early, good to maybe take a look at this . Where are we on that basket of issues . Well, for sure, our two countries have spent a lot of time recently talking about, you know, how our respective policies, whether its the indopacific strategy for our part or creative new southern policy. How they interact and overlap and how we complement each other and as you said, centrality, its certainly key to the four quad members, foreign policies in the region, but as i said, i think we just have to see. I mean, were still at the point where were trying to figure out amongst the four of us, how this should work, but Going Forward, i mean, the minister ourselves, mentioned, i think, publicly that, you know, the idea after quad. And foreclosing anything at this point. As i said dont want to be exclusive or insular, make the fabric and make it tighter and clear are before we start to think about building it out. Fair point, thanks, marc, thanks for that take. And sue ill come to you to kickoff topic two. Victor any comments on the quad to close out topic one . Yes, as marc said, it started in 2004. I remember it well, it was my first week at nsc when the tsunami hit. And to focus on disaster response, disaster preparation. Then it became sort of Informal Group in 05 and 06 and regular consultations, as marc said, on other topics, including iraq and afghanistan. When i step back and look at this more broadly in terms of the alliances, a lot of people would look at this as the primary manifestation of an effort to network, our bilateral alliances in asia, to take what are line segment bilaterals and turn them into triangles, trilaterals or quads as marek said. Theres clearly no language about china in the quad. Its about inclusion in all of this, but you know, the sort of joke that everybody says is when you get a group of u. S. Allies greater than three together, it starts to look like, you know, it starts to look like something that is directed against china. I think either the language on this, the way theyve framed it has been very good. It fits well with the idea to multilateralize stuff in asia. The fact that they talk about oxion is important, because from that perspective they dont want to see any organization of big powers squeezing out oxion in terms of regional institutions. Theyre sort of walking a good line right now and and these sorts of organizations are useful when they dont sort of say, were just going to focus on one thing. Its kind of a market. Its kind of like an amoeba, it has many different parts to and its functional more than institutional. Dangers when you Start Talking about institutionalization are we talking about a secretariat or things like that . And then i think you start to get concerns about inclusion, exclusion. And that leads us quickly we wont get into it here today, but a timehonored theme in this program about korea, china, u. S. , the squeeze, all of that. So you know, you can see that extent in Decision Making in at least surveying the quad from, i think, the korean peninsula. All right, let me go to topic two. Excellent work on topic one. Topic two coming up is north korea, october 10, party day celebration. Sue, im going to come to you first. So, we have 1010 marks party day. No major provocations post hanoi, tell me right or wrong on the question. Every five years theres usually something significant in terms of demonstration of military capability, something along those lines, and three, lots of open source chatter, imagery about something coming. So, sue, thats my inexpert take on north korea. Im turning to you to ask the question, what are we seeing now . What are we likely to see and what are kind of the take aways that you think will come out of 1010 celebrations, party day . Thanks. Youre right, i think were seeing in a few days, but on this 1010 day, i think they would display something big, some sort of a strategic weapon will be displayed. I think its very important right now to signal both strength and defiance at home and internationally to show that despite all of the domestic difficulties, troubles that we have been talking about in our program in the last several, you know, two months, i think, sanctions, covid, typhoons, the triple whammy, that he is strong, the regime remains strong, right, and besides that, promised in the address that he would reveal a new strategic weapon sometime this year. So, this is a perfect opportunity. As you mentioned, youve done your homework, that every five years, north korea does show something significant, something now. Five years ago, october 2015 parade. And the new icbm design and on the anniversary, a new missile, the first missile designed to have a range to hit guam. So we have him saying he worked for the strategic weapon. We have the he feels he needs to have strength and we have this president , five years, something new. So, you know, whether its a new slbm or Nuclear Armed slbm or its as pointed out on the show, the missile payload containing several warheads, its capable of being aimed at a different target which makes it very difficult to intercept. Makes the Missile Defense much more difficult. Whatever that is, i think theyll have to show something and of course, you also talked about the imagery showing something big. So besides showing something new, i think they will parade a whole lot of stuff out, to sort of show that theyre mass producing strategic weapons, you know, scores of something. So, then they have this, showing something new and as for this stuff, its all a warning to washington to whoever comes in november, whether trump, you know, trumps second term or vicePresident Biden. That north korea is continuing to expand its Nuclear Missile arsenal and washington is not on its side. And sue pieced that out. Theyre walk ago bit of a line here, in terms of they have got domestic politics as you mentioned, a fiveyear anniversary for lack of a better term. So, theres a desire to do something big, but they also are dealing with this in the middle of a u. S. Election, right . Unlike 15, unlike 10, right . That its a little different. What kind of line do they have to walk here . This is not a normal election year. Normally you would see this, and csis with the study, which is a window. The average of 4. Five weeks, its before or after the election so we we have seen something instead of provocation. Its not a normal election year. There are things to consider. First youd like to deal with President Trump rather than biden so probably wants to see trump reelected. In this case he doesnt want to make trouble for President Trump, bide and provocation. If the provocation comes, i do think its going to be after the election and particularly if if its President Biden. Transition time, lets say post election to biden coming in in january, and thats the time to watch out for. If its President Trump who is reelected then i think that kym kims calculation is changed, because he said, he wants to negotiate and get some sanctions relieved. Sue, thanks for your out standing take. Victor, your take on this. The thing im looking for the october 10 parade is whether people are going to be wearing masks, that has the potential to be a big super spreader event an