now we are going to get an expert's perspective on what is a packed week of
diplomacy here in Korea joining us live on skype is dr. mark Peaberry an
independent Asian affairs analyst with 30 years of experience on matters
related to the Korea's Northeast Asia and the u.s. policy in the region so
mark the top diplomats as we've been talking about of South Korea and Japan
are due to meet in Beijing this is Seoul and Tokyo remain locked in a dispute
over trade and historical issues how do you expect the talks to go and are you
concerned that South Korea might announce this weekend its intent to
withdraw from this general security of military information agreement ji somya
with Japan if the meeting aggravates what is on an already precarious
situation the money market already is precarious and the last thing that South
Korea should do is make it worse juh somya is extremely important it's
something that South Korea realized it needed to administration's back because
South Korea does not have the same radar and satellite capabilities that Japan
possesses so it's very important for the u.s. the Trump administration by the way
supports the continuation of giuse Omiya which was kind of sealed under the last
month's of the Obama administration so most important thing is don't aggravate
things any further I don't know how much can be accomplished in the meeting but I
feel that even though it's four days before the deadline or three days a
Korea time before a warning has to be given of pulling out of the juice Omiya
it's very important not to put that card on the table because that doesn't deal
with trade it deals with the political military which is a whole different
level of a problem now since these talks are happening in Beijing do you expect
China to use its regional influence to act as a kind of mediator of sorts in
the seoul-tokyo trade dispute and in regards to the other big player of
course the u.s. Jews think Washington has to really step up
to the plate to stop Beijing really capitalizing on the weakness that's
being shown by the Trump administration it's in it's in action really on this
very serious issue well as far as China's concern you just showed a clip
of the foreign minister of China encouraging both sides to peacefully and
and quickly resolve the dispute I think that's the expected position that China
will take I think they would only get more deeply involved and try to mediate
if they found that things were getting really out of hand and affecting the
Chinese economy and affecting the stability of the region in a larger
sense but at the same time China has its hands full they have the Hong Kong
protests they're concerned about the Taiwan elections that will be held in
January and most importantly they're in the middle of a very serious trade
dispute dispute with the United States which will have ripple effects in the
world economy well into 2020 so they're gonna play it very carefully but I don't
see them stepping in for the United States but what the US does is at this
point is it's more watchful waiting and I'd like to shift gears somewhat to the
breakdown of peace talks between the two Koreas this after Pyongyang reacted so
angrily to the recent seoul-washington joint drills and also president moons
National Liberation Day speech that happened last week just walk us through
why you think this process that seemed to be going so well in 2018 we had three
inter-korean summit last year has ended so abruptly well the way you put the
question I would answer it this way it's because of the failure of the Hanoi
summit and that was simply bilateral between the United States and North
Korea so it activates an existing situation now one could also argue
conversely that it's better to be criticized strongly than to be ignored
and that's what North Korea is doing they have a reason to criticize because
the joint exercises that concluded just yesterday were although a command post
exercise were in fact simulations of the occupation of North Korea after a
theoretical war particularly the last three days of the exercises so they were
a cause of irritation but the main thing is that the North does not want to push
things forward with South Korea very much until they get things back on track
with the United States which really has not happened in the time since June 30th
at the same time it's better to be criticized them to be completely ignored
so they're really saying to South Korea please is there something you can do to
try to encourage in the United States to do more so I think that's really the
reading between the lines okay and finally before we have to let you go the
US envoy on North Korea is in Seoul as we speak Steven vegan it seems like
diplomacy between the north and the US is also on shaky ground despite what
President Trump might say where do you see this process heading especially
given that Trump wants to get reelected next year and doesn't want his rather
unconventional shall we say North Korea policy to blow up in his face well first
of all the good news is that ambassador beigan looks like he's gonna stay in his
job he's not going to be nominated as the ambassador to Russia that would have
sent a terrible signal for the u.s. DPRK negotiations I don't necessarily expect
them to meet at the DMZ with North Korean officials because it may be too
soon they have to go through their gyrations and they you have to give them
time and you have to give them leeway to do what they have to do so they may not
be ready to really seriously have working-level talks until probably in
September but at the same time based on the latest letter from chairman Kim
Trump already said about a week or ten days ago that he thinks there could be a
third major summit in the novel not to just in the future
so I think it could happen it might be in Pyongyang it might be in Mongolia it
could be in a in a third country that we don't expect but the the real issue is
that the summits don't produce a result themselves there has to be a willingness
to make a series of deals that build up to a larger deal which I think
politically president Trump has great difficulty doing because his experience
teaches him do it as one big package and this is something that I don't think the
north is willing to do for reasons of trust and reasons of their position of
what national security really is oh say okay so quickly then you're you're
pretty pessimistic about the chances for any major developments in regards to
denuclearization over the next say 12 months or so well you not only have the
2020 campaign in full swing but more importantly this president has never
made a major deal he's pulled out of a lot of deals he's had bilateral trade
Ranieri negotiations were a different matter
but this is a huge regional and even global national security issue
the president does not have a track record of actually solving something of
this magnitude so the question is is President Trump
ready to take a step by step approach which is what President moon is
advocating and which is what North Korea is expecting in which China also is
anticipating so the question is can the president adjust his expectations and
find it politically useful to make progress I fear he's afraid that it'll
be misinterpreted that a small deal will be seen as a bad deal which goes back to
the whole issue of the failure of the Hanoi summit that whole dynamic has not
been healthy and I think we need to break that dynamic okay thank you very
much for your insights mark very informative as always we appreciate it
and we look forward to speaking to you next time thank you yes thank you and
happy 20th anniversary to Arirang news oh thanks very much