Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240703

This syndrome is extremely rare. Good friends dont have to be. When youre connected, youre not alone. Cox supports cspan as a public service. Along with these other television providers. Getting you a front row seat to democracy. Continues. Host a focus on the deepening ties between russia and north korea. Joining us now is victor cha and kim jongun met with Vladimir Putin last week. What did each want from the other from this meeting . Guest i was say at the first level is quite simple. Who needs ammunition for the war on ukraine and he is blowing through ammunition like nothing. The north Korean Leader needs putins fuel because they are coming out of a covid lockdown and so a simple transaction is food for arms. That is what brought these two together and its an unholy alliance. Host when was the last time they met and what was the significance of the timing and the length of this meeting was several days . Guest the last time they met was four years ago and 2019. The timing is related to the fact that kim is coming out of this covid lockdown and north korea is the only country that has not vaccinated its population during covid. They close their borders in january 2020 even close allies like china and russia and is completely shut down with no medicines. This is the urgency in the urgency from russia are weapons. There is a shortage of ammunition around the world and if there is one place where there is a stockpile of ammunitions is in north korea. Host its a Pretty Simple interaction, food and fuels for arms. Any concern about sharing the weird technology and the ability to create and Deploy Nuclear arms or submarines is that concern overblown from this meeting . Guest i think is a concern which is why on the first level its an exchange of food and fuel but commercial moon would not travel all the way to russia just for food. It does raise the concern based on the places he visited during his trip that there may be more than this. Although they will produce a proclamation for the world to see but every exchange is a violation of the Security Councils resolution. I think there is concern the fact that kim went to the space agency for russia which suggests putin might help them with satellite technology. North korea has had two unsuccessful satellites over the summer. And at the second level, not publicly seeing whats happening between these two sides to advance north koreas wmds. Host does north korea have enough arms to send to rusted to tip the balance . Guest in the open source we dont have a lot of Accurate Information about how large of a stockpile of the ammunitions there are. I thought it was interesting the first time the white house talked about an arms shipment from north korea to russia at the end of last year, i think it was november 2022. The nfc spokesperson john kirby stated it was a shipment of north korean arms to the wachter group wagner group. It wasnt enough to tip the balance but they were concerned. I dont think the administration can say that anymore. They are worried that there are shipments to russia but they are not saying its not significant enough to tip the balance. The omission of certain lines is also seen a significance. Host victor cha no stranger to cspan. Heres the numbers if you want to join the conversation for democrats 202 7488000, for republicans 202 7488001, 202 7488002 for independents . If you could talk about the potential impacts in the ukraine. What did it mean for south korea . What did it mean for china . Guest when we talk about countries like south korea, japan, australia they clearly oppose this. They think its a very bad thing in terms of aiding russia and the war in europe ended terms of what they give to north korea that makes it more unstable. For china this is much more complicated. Its not onedimensional, they dont like it when kim and putin get close together. They historically dont like when russia and north korea gets too close. So china try not to alienate north korea and cozy up to north korea. On the other hand, i dont think china wants to be seen as supporting something that will aid and prolong the russian side and prolong the war ukraine. If china does care about his International Reputation it doesnt want to be seen doing that. It is a difficult position for china. Any time north korea does some kind of deviant behavior the first people of the International Community blames his china because they have so much influence over north korea. It will be interesting at the u. N. , if there will be wholesale condemnation of russia and north korea because of this summit. The United States, south korea, eu, everybody has criticized a. It will be interesting to see what russia says, im sorry what china says about it because it will reveal some of their cards on how they feel about this arms transaction. Host this is thomas from texas. Caller china and russia are going broke over this war and i want to ask you, why are we still spending 10 billion a war 10 million a month and i right . Guest i never covered iraq when i was in the government and my role outside of government. I cant really say about iraq. In the case of russia, the United States has invested a lot both materially and politically in defending against russias unprovoked invasion. It costs a lot of money but theres a lot at stake. Host victor cha is our guest this morning. Those phone lines again are for democrats 202 7488000, for republicans 202 7488001, for independents 202 7488002. Caller i remember under reagan, how many president s have let north korea go . Guest its not like we did not know north korea was exploring the capability. When it became apparent to the world is in the late 1980s. There was an Opinion Column in the New York Times in which the title was the next renegade Nuclear State and he was talking about north korea. We have known about this Program Since the 1980s. If we declassified cia imagery there is declassified imagery from the 19 60s that was showing that they were creating a nuclear complex where most of their weapons programs are. We have known about this for a long time and the government has known about it. Why we have allowed it to happen . There are probably three reasons. The first is there are not easy military solutions to this problem. No one wants to start a nuclear war to stop a nuclear war. The second is north korea has the benefit of geography. They are tucked up near russia and china so they position a lot of their stuff near the border with china so if the United States had to take action theyd have to deal with china. In the United States going back to reagan has tried through diplomacy for north korea to give up their Nuclear Program. I was part of those negotiations and we offered a lot in return and they ventured into these deals but they cheated on them. For these three reasons we have known the program has existed but unsuccessful in stopping about it. Host how is russia felt about having a Nuclear Armed north korea on its border . Host the soviet union was the first to help north korea with nuclear capabilities. But even back then the soviets were responsible about it in the sense that they had a requirement for civilian purposes which is that they had to become a part of the nonproliferation treaty and had to follow the Atomic Energy safeguards. North korea would then reverse engineer that reactor and create a weapon Space Program which is what they did secretly and outside anyones knowledge. Today, i think the russians, they dont see the Nuclear Program as a threat to them but more of a problem to the United States ss china. They are perfectly happy to watch the United States struggle with this problem as long as u. S. Relations are in the difficult state they are in now. They take tactical benefit and the fact that its a problem for the United States and its allies. Host we have bill from michigan, and independent. Caller i would like to ask between russia, china and ukraine and thinking about russia, china and vietnam. It sounds like the same thing to me. Do the American People see the same thing . They all come together just like vietnam. Thank you victor. Host do you see parallels to vietnam . Guest there could be some parallels but in the case of vietnam, the u. S. Forces were directly involved in we got into a difficult quagmire there. The Biden Administration has drawn a redline about sending Ground Troops into ukraine. I think one of the parallels ica is korea and south korea in the sense that it was an unprovoked invasion into one country from another. They were both ostensibly countries in the western bloc that were in the support of freedom and democracy to some degree when they were invaded in the world has come to the aid of both of them. In the case of ukraine you see it clearly and in the case of south korea you sought as well. I see parallels there and that is why a lot of interest in asia if your viewers are unaware. There is a lot of interest among Asian Companies to support ukraine. They provide billions of dollars to support ukraine in this effort. I think the main parallels between what happened in their region during the cold war. Host edward and ohio, and independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. Host what is your question . Caller i think you know why the United Nations can set by and not get involved with the north koreans supplying weaponry to russia. Russia has been an adversary of the United States for as long as i can remember. It goes back to the Second World War when we help them and they helped us. But lately since putin has taken power, there has not been any work with United States diplomacy to stop this. Guest the United Nations General Assembly is meeting in new york and this will be a major topic of discussion, the war ukraine in the recent summit between kim and putin. The problem we have now is that there are two permanent u. N. Council members, china and russia at prevent the u. N. From acting. In a situation like this, this transaction between russia and north korea is in violation. Russia signed on to it. There are 10 security resolutions that they signed into with regards to north korea and this is in violation with them. All members of the Un Security Council except for russia will support whatever the triggering mechanisms are for sanctions. Borussia will oppose that. Its a real dilemma. If something is brought to the Un Security Council russia will oppose it in its interesting to see what china does. I dont know if they want to be in the position of siding with russia and opposing Un Security Council resolutions, statement that comes out. It will be interesting to see how china response of that. But i think that means is that trying to coordinate whether it sanctions or statements with regards to russia and north korea have to happen with other organizations like the g7 or nato and the at4. Any sort of punitive action has to be coordinated outside of groupings like this where russia and north korea cannot china cannot veto it. Host just this past june, korea a history of south and north. Why did she think theyre deeded to be a new history of korea . Guest the reason my coauthor and i wrote this book is that we felt like there is so a lot of interest in korea especially by the younger generation. It is generated by the interested in korean pop culture, music and film. A lot of people have started watching korean dramas during the pandemic and theres a lot of interest in korea and there has not been a general history book in 27 years. My coauthor and myself decided we would write this book from an American European perspective and the response has been good. People especially like the hot pink cover. For anyone interested in the general history i recommended. Host the history of south and north is the title of the book. Thisthis is peter, and independ. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. What is the end and ukraine . Can you tell the viewers how many soldiers have been killed so far . How do we justify israel having all of these nukes when you talk about sanctioning all these other countries . If israel is going to haveif iss isnt korea going to say why cant we have nukes . What about arend . What about iran . Guest the collaboration between russia and north korea could expand beyond weapons and fuel. They just rolled weapons and fu. They just rolled out a new diesel submarine that can launch 10 missiles at a time. They want Nuclear Powered submarines that have the range said that are required. They are actively trying to come backback intercontinental techny , that means solid fuel pro propellants. The concern is the russia will notnot only provide fuel but it will provide these other things to north korea. In this meaning, kim jongun was there for six days and they reported that putin has been invited to come to north korea in november. In november. There is more than is going to happen with cooperation cooperation between these two sides. There is a conversation that south korea should also go nuclear. We cant discount these things as the threats grow longer larger. There is an arm race which is causing countries to adjust. The United States does not support south Korea Going Nuclear in the statements between the south korean president and president biden, this was the summit that became famous because the south korean president saying his Favorite Song american pie at the white house. The u. S. Agreed to give south korea insight into conventional military advice. But they wanted to dissuade them from Getting Nuclear Weapons because the u. S. Could help them. Host how did that go over and south korea . Guest it went over well. A major ramping up of military ramping up of military exercise, i think it has answered the the call but the gl posts always changing. If we get more information of what exactly the russians will provideprovide north koreans thl continue to pose more questions. Host we have time for maybe one or two more questions for pat victor cha. Caller my father fought in the korean war the chinese had 10,000 troops coming in against my fathers forces. When we fought in vietnam they came in 30,000 battalions. The chinese dont want to get involved in these conflicts but yet they send but yet they send troops, they send troops to fight for these people. I am happy that you did the book because i because i think there are two cultures. If they emerged it would probablyif they emerged it would probably help with the problems and north korea. Guest thank you john for the question. In terms ofin terms of china anh korean tension, in korea they prevented the unification of the korean macarthur did his historic landing and was able to cut off north koreas supply lines, reverse the wave, and push up to the 38th parallel until the north korean Peoples Volunteer army came in human waves, that was their tactic. These human waves to push u. S. Forces back. I certainly do not think there is a likelihood of china adding involved in ukraine in the same way. Geographically it is a completely different situation. When president xi and Vladimir Putin met and they talk about this unending friendship, my senses china is very ambivalent about the war in you reign. They do not want to be on the losing side and they do not know which side is owning. I did not think they want to be cast as an international pariah. Plus they have a host of domestic problems, including their economy and the chinese leader is making a lot of mistakes. We see it in the disappearing of key leaders. The defense minister goes missing. It is very difficult for china. While china has been involved militarily in korea and supported in vietnam, the Chinese Military although it is growing and large is not very practiced in more. For better or for worse the u. S. Military is. We have been involved in a number of wars. In that sense sometimes i think we should certainly worry about the Chinese Military threat, but the u. S. Military is much more practiced in war than any other military, including china. Let me say thank you for your fathers service in korea. Host victor cha is with the center for strategic and help healthy democracy doesnt look like this, it looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work. A republic thrierves. This is what democracy looks like. Powered by cable. Tonight attorney general Merrick Garland testifies on oversight at the Justice Department before the house judiciary committee. Watch the entire hearing at 8 00 p. M. On cspan, our video app or online at cspan. Org. American history tv saturdays on cspan 2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern George University Washington University and how to provide economic security. And on the presidency, a look how president s are portrayed in film. It included movies such as kisses for my president. And lincoln in 2012. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv saturdays on cspan 2 and watch online at cspan. Org history. Monday, watch cspans new series, books that shaped america. We will feature the federalist, a compilation of essays by alexander hamilton, James Madison and john jay. Judge gregory mags and Colleen Sheehan director for graduate studies at Arizona State university will be our guests to discuss why those essays are the most important references for ep interpreting the original intent. Watch books that shaped america monday live at 9 00 eastern or online at cspan. Org. You can learn more about the authors of the books featured