"What to Do About North Korea"
The Defense Forum Foundation, which promotes democracy around the world, is led by Suzanne Scholte who is well-known as a leading advocate for freedom and human rights for the people of North Korea.
Ri, the speaker at the webinar, defected from North Korea in 2014 after faithfully serving the Kim family, making billions for the regime through his work at Bureau 39 and as founder and CEO of the Daehung Shipping & Trading Company. He received numerous awards including the Hero of Labor Award, the highest civilian honor in North Korea.
What should we do about North Korea? According to Ri, the U.S. Congress should enact a new law that would "strengthen sanctions against North Korea for its denuclearization," and "completely block the North Korean rubber goods import market." Ri explains that the rubber for tires used on North Korean military vehicles is 100 percent imported.
Therefore, "banning North Korea's imports of rubber could cause all military vehicles, including missile vehicles, to stop and have a tremendous effect on denuclearization."
Ri also stressed the importance of "sending outside information into isolated North Korea so that the people of North Korea, including the North Korean elite, can learn the truth," as well as supporting Free North Korea Radio and activities of North Korean defectors. This clearly contradicts the idea of the new law that the National Assembly has recently passed, banning anti-North Korea leaflets.
Ri's view appears to support my opinion piece that appeared in the April 3, 2016, edition of The Korea Times where I stated: "For political and business leaders in Korea, it may be important, more likely critically important, to recognize that continuing the past policies of peaceful overtures to North Korea hoping that they will change is likely to jeopardize the very existence of Korea. No matter how good the intentions may be, continuing such policy while North Korea is getting so close to having tactical nuclear weapons ready is an invitation to mimic Nokia's loss on a grander scale."
Just in case you are wondering about "Nokia's loss," the story goes like this.
Microsoft announced it was buying Nokia for $7.2 billion in September 2013, and the deal was finalized on April 25, 2014. When the deal was announced, the then CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop, gave a speech to his management team which he ended by saying that "we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost."
When he said that, all his management team, including Elop himself, shed tears. Nokia was a very respectable company at the time but failed to keep up with the rapidly changing market environment.
Consider the story of two lovers. The gist of this story was referred to in an article by Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown University, in Bob Woodward's book, "Rage." The article was printed in the Sept. 13, 2020, issue of the Washington Post.
Once there were two lovers in a fantasy land who were looking for their perfect match all over the world. Luckily for them, there was a matchmaker who was able to bring the two together. Soon, the two fell in love and began to send beautiful love letters to each other.
After about 25 such letters, the two lovers finally met on June 12, 2018. It was love at first sight, with lover #1 proclaiming "You meet a woman. In one second, you know whether or not it's going to happen."
They met again on Feb. 27, 2019, and again on June 30, 2019. Letters exchanged between the two could not be more sweet and lovely: "I cannot forget that moment ...," "Like the brief time we had together …," "Would you like me to come in?" and more.
Well, the two lovers were U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un. The matchmaker was President Moon Jae-in. Quotations are real, not imagined.
President Moon and his policymakers may feel that they didn't do anything wrong, but the outcome to-date appears to be exactly as predicted in my 2016 article. North Korea has firmly established itself as a nuclear power, while peace between the two Koreas appears as far away as it has ever been.
Any future strategy accompanies danger to human lives and economic costs. I do not know what would be best for future negotiations between the two Koreas. I do believe, however, that we need an open discussion of all options by all stakeholders in South Korea so that no one will have to say "somehow we lost" in the future.
Chang Se-moon (changsemoon@yahoo.com) is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies.