Officials tell you what they believe you need to know. So they undermine your popularity. Part of russian president Vladimir Putins callin program. You can watch that online at cspan. Org. Search putin. We take you back to the allday forum on u. S. south korea relations hosted by the center for strategic and International Studies. They are getting back underway. Live coverage here on cspan3. Thank you for all the jobs that you have done over the past decade now. Probably seems like its going quickly. But for us journalists, i am a reporter at the Washington Post. Victor and the korea chair have been a valuable, valuable resource both, obviously, in the past few years, but before that. I was bugging victor and others in the program quite often. Maybe many times you didnt necessarily want to be bugged. But for terrific analysis and to help sort of walk me through whats happening. I wanted to take time out to thank the korea chair for that and congratulate you for such a successful ten years. I am a reporter with the Washington Post and i cover the white house. And i have been doing that for about seven or eight years. First under the obama administration. Now the past two and a half with President Trump. It has been quite an experience shifting between the two. One thing i focused on the entire time thats kind of a through line is asia policy because its so important, starting with president obamas pivot to asia. So its my great honor to be hosting this panel. I wanted to say that we will be discussing i know there are three panels today. We will be discussing the u. S. Rok lines. As a journalist, i like to be very topical. Let me introduce the panel and we will have a healthy discussion about where we are. Its an auspicious week, of course, because President Trump is headed to osaka for the g20, and then to seoul for an important summit with monsoon. We will ask the panelists about that. Victor here to my left. He founded the korea chair in 2009. He served after having served as the director of Asian Affairs in the National Security council in the Bush Administration from 2004 to 2007. He was very involved with the sixparty talks and other negotiations with north korea that have predated where we are today. He authored five books, including the impossible state north korea, past and future, and i believe victor youll see him quite a bit on nbc and msnbc as an analyst. We have of course right next to victor is ambassador joseph jung. Thank you for joining. He probably needs little introduction. He is a Senior Advisor to the asia program at the u. S. Institute of peace. Before that he served 33 years as a diplomat and for two years you well know was from 2016 to 2018 was a u. S. Special enjoy to north korea. He was a key player in reestablishing communications with pyongyang through the new york travel and then of course traveling to North Carolina to help secure the release and ultimately secure the release of otto warmbier. And so thank you, joe, for all your service. I think joe is also a regular contributor to cnn, if im not mistaken. We will have a little faceoff here. I think next to ambassador yen is dr. Kim. He is a professor at Hong Kong University university of International Studies. Research on the rok alliance and the enter korean relationship on the peninsula. And he spent time prior to that as a visiting full bright scholar at george mason university. Not far from where i grew up in northern virginia. So thank you, dr. Kim. We have next of course another diplomat. Joy yamamoto who last fall took over as the director of the korea desk at the state department. A job she assumed after serving as the minister for the u. S. Embassy in seoul. Joy is obviously very much involved in all the things we will be talking about today. Before that she was a dip nat in indonesia, china and other locations around the world and close to my heart was a former newspaper reporter. So she knows all my tricks. Joy, you are on the record today because this is a big crowd and being broadcast. And finally we have dr. Son yung lee from korea, the president of the Korean Nuclear policy society. Served at the director general for policy panel. Minister of foreign apires from twefb two 2013. Authored numerous paper and an alleys includi alle analyses. So thank you to our panelists. We are going to jump into a dialogue rather than opening presentations which i think sometimes slows things down. As a journalist, we are interested in whats happening. No better time to have this panel than the president s trip. I wanted to sort of get right at it. I think there is a lot of interest now after what seemed to be a dark period in our diplomacy, our dialogue after the collapse of the hanoi summit, which i was at, about whats gonna happen, how to get the talks back on track. We see what tends to be the path of this president , this administration, which is a leader to leader engagement. If you see the exchange of the socalled love let as President Trump may call them. You know, first kim jong un apparently sent a letter to the president. And then you saw around his birthday and then you saw a reciprocal letter reported over the weekend which kim jong un received apparently from President Trump. The white house has confirmed that letter was sent. And that that letter contained, according to the state news agency, excellent content and that the chairman is considering. So that raises a lot of intriguing possibilities. I know there has been a lot of discussion about what to make of this summit between moon and President Trump coming up. But maybe i could start with victor and well go down the line a little bit about what we think about a third summit. Do we see now that these exchanges have sort of renewed that idea and President Trump we dont know what was in the letter. Do we see a third summit and what does that mean and what would it take for us to get to that place. Sure. Well, thanks for the question. The other thing you should all know before we get started, david didnt properly introduce himself. Because what he is most known for in the korea policy expert is he is the only journalist we know that has asked a question of kim jong un at a press conference and gotten an answer. I joke now on my tombstone that will say he shouted a question at the most ruthless dictator and lived for a while to tell about it. I wrote a story about it. I was in the press pool in han soy. I had been to singapore. A small group of 13 reporters were allowed into the photoops. Everybody cannot get in. That pool, television, radio and print, me, writes a summary and sends it out of what happens. So thats i was very disappointed not to be in the pool for the singapore summit. I had to sort of remain in the hotel and home e hope for some briefings. I went to kim jong uns hotel when he arrived. I waited four hours with ordinary folks on the streets off the shopping corridor to get a glimpse of the motorcade and body cards. I wrote a scene piece about why we wait on the Street Corner with our kids playing ipad to see this ruthless dictator and get a glimpse. That was as close as i came to seeing him then. And so i was thrilled that we were, the Washington Post was the Pool Reporter for hanoi and so when we went if, we had sort of as a group said we need to shout something to kim. And President Trump engages so much. After the quick photo op reporters shouted to President Trump and he answered. Then i positioned myself closer to kim and was keeping an eye on him, trying to make eye contact. When i heard trump stop talking i said, chairman kim, do you feel good about a deal . He did this. As i wrote in the subsequent piece, now, you know, you get taken to task if you write something about being chummy with a dictator. My point this is a universal sign you feel good, you feel good. I didnt know what would happen. Its like time slows down, nur the moment. If you look at the replay, trumps interpreter leans over. Trumps interpreter leans over afternoon indicates its for him. And then he responds. So i was thrilled. In the moment at the end. Piece i said i didnt realize no one had ever done that or gotten a response. We were ushered out. They didnt want to keep letting us have a chance. Rushed back to have the pool report out. I saw on twitter that this had make big news. He said i feel hopeful, but, you know, we feel hopeful but we are not there yet. At the time we assumed there would be an interim deal, all signs sort of led to that. In reality, he went there yet. My colleague used the quote at the end of her book on kim jong un, the hopeful feeling. Well see. But that was the experience. Id love to see if my colleague on this trip or subsequent may have another chance because it seems certainly that another summit doesnt seem like we are close when we should be close to that. This is a president who does things differently. We are coming up on a campaign. I would love to go down the line briefly. So i feel like and i want to echo what rich said in the beginning. There is something in the air, right . I think there is something in the air. After that hanoi summit, there was basically no dialogue taking place. All the efforts at the working level to make contact were not were just going into a black hole. Then all of a sudden this birthday card letter comes from kmarn k chairman kim to trump, which he then responded to. And then xi jinping goes to pyongyang, right . And so whenever you see highlevel letter and then the chinese and the North Koreans meeting, thats kind of like the setup for a third meeting. Now, i have no inside information on this, but those pieces are pieces that we would we generally see before there is another highlevel meeting. In addition to that, based on my experience as a staffer setting up trips by the president , its quite unusual, i feel, this time for President Trump to be spending two nights in korea off of the g20 summit in osaka. Usually, when we do these trips, and many in the audience know this well, usually its an rr. O. N. In japan and then early in the morning a trip to korea, do the troops, and you move on. So this is a lot of time in korea. I think there is doubt that the president will go to the dmz because he has never been there. And the last time he went he couldnt go. General brooks was there at the time, and there was a lot of it was like really bad weather that day. Really bad fog that day. So he couldnt make that trip. I think every u. S. President thats going to say anything about korea has to difficult the dmz to see, you know, the actual division and how armed it is. So im pretty certain he is going to do that. And then the question is, is he going to make a big statement at the dmz . Is he going to do it himself . Is he going to do it with president moon . There there be other surprises . This president likes surprises. So i feel like there is something going on. We are not sure what. It looks like there is an effort to reset after hanoi. And maybe not a third summit immediately, but at least a reset that will allow the working level to reengage. The problem is, is that as long as both sides dont put a lot of or dont empower the working level to make agreements, we are going to fall into the same trap that we fell in in hanoi, which is working level meetings, everything but the most important issue. That is left to the two leaders and the two leaders cant make a deal. And i feel like right now it looks like we are headed down that road. And what the president did on iran in terms of pulling back at the last minute with regard to retaliatory military strike for the downing of the drone only reinforces the view in north korea that youve got to talk to your leader. And so that means that the working level are not going to be able to make agreements that can then set up a successful summit. So thats what i worry about. Joe, what do you think would put us on a path to a summit that makes more sense than maybe a rushed meeting certainly this trip . What kind of timeframe do you see as more sensible . I think fundamentally there is something to the relationship between donald trump and kim jong un. And its kind of a mixture of both admiration for each other, but the Information Set is quite a symmetry. Kim jong un knows everything there is to know about donald trump. He knows texactly how the u. S. Government operates, what his key staffers, whether its pompeo, bolton, are like. Now, donald trump doesnt know anything about what what is going on in pyongyang. There is the mismatch. And so i think, you know, in my experience North Koreans study washington like anything. When i was in government, i think it was in november of 2016, i was talking with north korea and i was trying to set up a meeting for my then boss tennyson to go to pyongyang. They said, no, we really dont want tennyson. We think he is going to get fired, you know . And, you know, of course they were completely right. He did get fired about four months later. But the underlying, the underlying rationale is, of course, we all know, historically its true, that north korean side have been wanting summits. Now the difference is the u. S. Side, or donald trump, wants one. So i have no doubt there will be a third summit. There will be a third summit probably sooner rather than later. And what will make it a success . Of course, victor is right. It has to be worked on at a working level so that there are no surprises. But i am relatively optimistic. If you look at what was on the table in hanoi, there was quite a bit on the table. From north korean side, giving up young byeong. They both had agreed to open liaison offices. So the key issues like definition of denuclearization, how much denuclearization, for how much sanctions, what were left out. But i do think you can reach a next level of a deal relatively quickly. So, in that sense, he its in their interests to have a summit. Put this to a place where its sustainable at least for a while. Donald trumps main goal is, of course, to win the 2020 november election. So get through that. I mean, you know, fortunately for kim jong un, he doesnt face an election. So i think you are looking at a shortterm, mediumterm path that puts you on a stable route. Dr. Kim, can you give us a sense our the south korean government has been trying to work with both sides to try to reengage them . Because we know that there had been very little communication after hanoi between washington and pyongyang. And then what is the view in seoul about moving forward with that leadertoleader dialogue and how important that is . The south korean government has no choice but to be a part of it. Thats true. And actually, you know, after four months, its like you dont move. No change of animosities. Something is going on. It looks like something is going on. Xis state visit to north korea. And kim jong un, you know, visit. And happened to be oneyear anniversary of singapore. But to me its not really any of it is not a game changer because and of course south koreas offered to come out and meet south korean president just like happened in last may. Its actually 20 hours before the second, you know, meeting. Actually, they couldnt meet i think on may 26th. So south korea, oh, it happened again. But the thinking of the situation right now for north koreas perspective, they are still angry. They were devastated. Pretty much they recoop themselves, but they are not ready to come out. And their perception is like this. This is not our turn to give away. This is the turn that either, you know, the u. S. Change the calculation, or south korea try to persuade america to their perspective. Definitely they are going to be, i think, a summit. But to me its not in like sooner. So i think its more like a second half because they think, even if they are decided to come out to negotiate, they need to rebuild the position to have a better deal. They dont want a repeat of what we had . Exactly. And regarding these love letters, you know, beautiful letter, excellent letter, actually this is actually what i heard from a reliable source. During the six months last year, there was there were five unknown secret personal letters between these, actually from kim jong un to trump. I think this is in a way special communication method. So i dont think there is a really a gamechanging, some kind of proposal even though they think its interesting. They try to maintain this. Not in this kind of letter to put, you know, special, you know, some kind of concession or a deal. I want to skip joy briefly only as you can understand she is in a very sensitive position right in the middle of all this, and some limitations on what she can say about north korea. Were going to get right back, though, come right back to her about the u. S. Rok lines, i wanted to skip to dr. Lee to build off of that. What do we think about these letter, and victor will give a better sense of this. These letters are formulaic. President trump released one letter last summer that he got from kim jong un, very flowery, but didnt say a whole lot, as you say. We doubt that there is a lot of detailed, you know, information necessarily, but i wanted to see if dr. Lee had some thoughts about, you know, what we think about what could be accomplished with this kind of letters between the leaders and, you know, the President Trump he brings reporters into the oval office and hell have staff bring on hand, and let reporters read them, which we saw in the Time Magazine interview late last week in which i think the reporter attempted to take a photo. I dont know if you saw that in the transcript take a photo of one of the letters the president got so upset, he said, you know, you can read it but you cant take a picture of it. And at one point suggested the reporter could be put in prison if he violated that rule. The reporter said are you threatening me with prison time. The letters are important, he clearly wants them to get out but clearly not violate kim jong uns confidence. Can you tell us more about what you think is trying to be accomplished, other than just praise for each other, unless thats it . I would say that, and this is a good sign because both sides want to continue the model dialogu