Not in terms of their interest, they all share that, but in terms of the wealth of experience we have both on the academic side and in policy from the people that we have on the stage today. I think their full bios are in your programs, but i will briefly introduce them in a minute. You know, often the beginning of any administration the first few months are very formative months in terms of the shape and the tenor, the relationships that emerge between a new head of state and all of its regular partners, all of its countries. In this particular case we essentially have two new heads of state, you know, President Trump here in the United States as well as president moon in south korea. So we are right now in this very formative period where the first few months, the first few interactions that take place actually play a very Important Role in the longer term relationship, the directions that are set between the moon and the trump administrations. So we thought it was very important to start off, the expert substantive panels with a discussion on the alliance and on what our experts see as the agenda for the Alliance Going forward. Let me introduce them very briefly to you, and i want to particularly emphasize the wealth of experience that we have here. Starting at the far end, my good friend is Vice President of the asan institute, independent think tank in south korea, choi kang, but he also served as Senior Adviser on the National Security council for the administration. Sitting next to hip is abe denmark. Abe denmark is the newly i dont know if they nainaugurate you there. The newly inaugurated with the having left the Obama Administration as deputy secretary for east asia in the office of secretary of defense. Sitting next to abe is professor i dont know youngkwan yoon, who is professor of Foreign Affairs and relations, which is the georgetown of south korea. He was minister of Foreign Affairs for the government. Then sitting next to him, last but not least, is michael pillsbury. Any of you who are in this area in washington d. C. Or who study china know mike as one of the longtime china hands, longtime, greatly experienced people on the hill, but not only that he has served two u. S. President s on not just asia policy but broader strategy and strategy and National Security issues. So really a wealth of experience across across the board here. The way were going to do this initially is were going to ask each much our panelists to make some initial remarks, and then we will use that as a springboard for discussion among the group as well as with all of you. So i think i think i will start off with a very basic question to all of you which really comes emanates from my initial remark, which is that, you know, we are in a very important transitional period and formative period in the alliance between these two new leaders. I would like to hear from each of you what you think are the key tasks, the key challenges, the Key Opportunities going forward. So i would like to begin with dr. Pillsbury, if thats okay. And how will i know when my minutes are up . Are you going to nudge me gently . Yeah, i will nudge you. Youll be fine, dont worry about it. Pursuant to your request, victor, i wrote out a list of 12 ways that the United States could improve its relationship, its Overall Alliance relationship with the republic of korea. Obviously to do all 12 justice is impossible, but i thought i would touch on your question. I think some copies of the statement are have been passed around but not everybody has one. The very first thing and im a friend of the trump administration. I dont represent them. I was an advisor to the transition, so i may be the only friend of President Trump in the room. I dont know if thats true, but i want to identify myself with that point of view because my first recommendation is President Trumps commitment to improving the alliance relationship. There are various ways that it can be handled in terms of what is often called deliverables. Seems to me the chances are good for a major success in that trip. Secondly, ways to improve policy coordination on north korea. Theres already been progress on this. President obama took it very seriously. Is socalled strategic patience term actually covered and i believe abe denmark will go into it covered four specific things. More can be done. Just over the weekend this joint statement between the white house and blue house is very good progress, but it seems to me policy coordination in north korea is easy to say. I think you would probably find nobody against it, but how to do it seems to me requires a longer term vision and it requires what sounds boring sometimes to the Newspaper Media people, it requires study groups and figuring out what exactly are some scenarios and, frankly, what is the military balance, what are some of the military options. Because a great deal of our relationship with south korea is, in fact, military. So im going to unpack some of these things in my additional recommendations under this larger rubric of enhanced policy coordination on north korea. It seems to me the consultation between the two president s is where we have to start. This idea of some people have had in the past that phone conversations are not good between heads of state, it should be left to Deputy Assistant secretaries to handle these things, theres a case for that, but the other case is the more the two heads of state talk on the phone, the more they exchange ideas, the better. Thats where i come out. Then to get more specific, the role of china is, generally speaking, not part of u. S. Korean Alliance management. It is supposed to be about the defense of south korea, but again and again china comes up. One of the strange ways this has happened is the failure of our military relationship with china. We try to reassure china about many things, but a lot of Chinese Military guys and i cover this in my book, the 100 year marathon, have conspiracy theories about the United States that rival alex jones and brightbart in terms of their interpretation of what the americans are up to. This has happened now with the thaad deployment. If you go to raytheons website you will find a very detailed description of what the thaad radar range can do and how theres a switch in the little trailer between shortrange radar coverage and longrange radar coverage. There are also a serie als of online articles that show the range when the switch is turned. This has inflamed some people in the Chinese Military and intelligence complex, that somehow thaad is part of a large american plot to neutralize the Chinese Nuclear deterrent capability against the United States. Theres ways the reassure the pla. I as a scholar have tried this myself, showing them that actually radar coverage doesnt help very much. It is very weak. It is very weak, you cant know very much. The United States has other systems, in space, to learn these things. We dont have a National Missile Defense System that covers the chinese. It is a Public Policy for many, many years. This does not work. Abe, you can correct me if im wrong, but i dont think were going to have much luck persuading the Chinese Military that thaad isnt somehow aimed against them. Well, to anticipate this would have been good, but to work on it would be even better. Thats why my fourth area for improvement is doing a better job explaining the capabilities of thaad. The most important thing to say isnt the radar. It is the range of the missiles. The missiles are very short range. They cannot a lot of Chinese Military conferences im into actually believe in the thaad system is a missile that can fly 1,500 miles and stop a Chinese Nuclear missile from being fired at america. Thats simply not true. So thats one of several areas where china seems to me ought to be a focus of the Alliance Coordination mechanisms, exchanging views on alternative scenarios for china, sharing our debates and, frankly, theres a very good pitch here for a book victor shaw just wrote, Princeton University press called powerplay. Victor has found in a very original way new materials for how americas military alliances in asia including with south korea were formed. This is so different from the chinese perception. If i can put words in your mouth that i think i read in the book, in many cases the u. S. Strategy at the time was to restrain tendencies or even the use of force by the part of alliance partners. It was not designed to encircle china, to invade and dismember the chinese. So im hoping there will be a chinese translation, victor, of your book powerplay that we read in the pla. Thank you. You cite so many original document also that have not been seen before. I will skip over the rest. Theres room for improvement in the trilateral relationship between south korea, japan and the United States. One of the sticking points is something you can show off if you know what it means. Put up your hand if you know what is. It is the central obstacle. I see seven hands not counting victor and abe. Gisomia is one of the central obstacles in improving the trilateral relationship. At first south korea agreed to it, then president moon made it sound like he didnt maybe. It is an agreement on the protection of military secrets. I think it is at least 60 countries we have these agreements with. So it is an obstacle to improving military and intelligence coordination between the three countries. I would say that in terms of technology transfer, helping the Korean Defense ministrys 2020 reform plan, theres more that can be done. I think the trump administrations already started down this path. I mean this partly as a joke, victor, but cutting the price of the f35 doesnt just benefit the us air force, it will benefit south koreas decision to already move ahead. The larger topic that in south korea is called defense reform, and defense reform implies not just modernization of Weapons Systems and new technologies, it implies meeting the kinds of conditions that the American Military has testified to congress about, the conditions that would make sense to south korea if it wants the transfer wartime Operational Command. This has been the topic of testimony by our commander of the u. S. Forces korea that focus on command and control, just a whole series of things that come under the same concept that the Defense Ministry in korea refers to as it 2020 reform. So thats another area where progress could be accelerated. Obviously we dont want to create the notion that south korea is being left alone in wartime by the Operational Command change, but we dont want to also insult the south korean sovereignty that they cant take care of this function themselves. In the last two or three i tried to venture into the area of trade. Usually trade and Security Issues are never mixed. This is considered the sign of a reckless person who tries to mix trade and security. However, more and more since at least the 80s, if you look at the National Security archive reports of henry kissinger, and certainly the reagan administration, trade actually is part of National Security. And a good ambassador or the best ambassadors, victor, are able to combine trade and Security Issues in a very thoughtful way so that theres double successes. This it seems to me is the challenge with south korea. It is so important in our trading network. Weve got to find ways where we essentially say the Free Trade Agreement has its own dispute mechanism processes built in, what we call joint committee exists. It doesnt have to become the topic of a freeforall and competitive thinking because, in fact, as i argue in 100 year marathon both south korea and the United States economies are challenged by china. We have a common interest in the chinese playing by the rules, not just the wto but in a series of other agreements that they have signed up to. So i would like to see progress in south korean american trade talks within the context that the joint committee exists, that theres dispute mechanisms that are quite ready to handle any challenges. But it seems to me this should be coordinated with both countries concerned about the chinese competitiveness because, frankly, theyre outcompeting both of us. So common interest indicates parallel activities that could take place at wto or elsewhere. Ill leave some of the others just to build some suspense, but theres a question of Nuclear Energy cooperation and another question that i could ask you all is who knows what pyrotechnology is . You can put your hand up. More know what pyrotechnology than gisomia. Thats good news. There are ways that the south Korean Defense minister already raised this, i guess yesterday, that we could that there should be a review of whether to return u. S. Nuclear weapons to deployment in south korea. There are also additional steps that can be taken in the Nuclear Energy cooperation area that i think would get the attention of north korea. Im not advocating that. Im against at the present time im against Nuclear Weapons for south korea, but im not totally against it, just speaking as a scholar. It seems to me in these talks which are due in 2020 so it is really twoandahalf more years. In these talks the korean side seems to be interested in uranium enrichment facilities they do not have now. This is like a new frontier for the iaea for how to work out verification agreements, but the United States in my view to improve relations with south korea could be more openminded about uranium enrichment and the socalled pyro issue. Again, theres twoandahalf years to go on that. Thats a general list of i left out a few of them, but how im sort of bullish on improving u. S. south korean relations
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