Evidence of meeting #84 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
I'll forgo the formalities.
Mr. Kim, do you agree with Mr. Grinius that more engagement by the Canadian government by sending our ambassador to Pyongyang would be a good idea?
12:50 p.m.
Special Adviser, HanVoice
Absolutely, but I would also state that the amount of dialogue you could get out of the North Korean regime is probably minimal or of little value. The engagement we should be looking at is with the North Korean people and the whole “track two“ type of dialogue that we should be having at the moment.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Mr. Grinius, this really touches on two critical issues. One of them, obviously, is the human rights situation inside North Korea, which everyone knows is abysmal. The second is the complete failure on the part of everyone else to effect a denuclearization policy. We've been talking about this since 2002. One would have to say that we've completely failed with respect to this objective.
This is an absolutely politically incorrect thing to argue or ask, but is it possible for us to imagine North Korea agreeing to controls and China agreeing to be a participant in the control of how the nuclear facilities in North Korea are allowed to continue? At what point do we say, “Okay, we've tried this and it hasn't worked, so let's try something else”?
12:55 p.m.
As an Individual
The human rights situation of course is terrible. You can convey certain Canadian concerns, as we do in the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as I've done, but that only gets you so far. The denuclearization question is probably the most frustrating. When I say to the Chinese, “Kim Jong-un, this guy with the bouffant pressing a red button—you guys are okay with it?”, you just get nothing from the Chinese.
We've gone up and down with promises of light water reactors, the whole KEDO, Korea energy development organization, that wanted to give nuclear energy to the North Koreans if they could stop their weapons program. We've been through that several times. I do not foresee any scenario, unfortunately, at this time, where the North Koreans can say, “Yes, we're giving control to the IAEA, not a problem, and we'll get out of the weapons program”. It's their ace in the hole.
One of the frustrations is that the North Korean military perhaps even believe that North Korean nuclear weapons are keeping the Americans from invading. We're just not going to be able to get through. There are going to have to be a lot of geopolitical, geostrategic discussions before we are able to maybe broach those sorts of subjects. I'm told even the Chinese military have a hard time talking to the North Korean military.
It's a big, big challenge.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Yes. A lot of the questions revolve around what China might or might not do. I must say that I can see China having a lot of uses for an outlier from a strategic and tactical point of view. As long as the outlier doesn't directly impact on China, they can say, well, that's.... As well, the Chinese don't believe, I think, that the North Koreans are actually going to use the nuclear capability they have. It's a lot of talk, but they're not likely to do it.
The problem that all of us face in a world of this kind is the danger of miscalculation. At some point, people could make a mistake in calculating what others will do. What I've heard you say is that the two critical geopolitical players are the United States and China. We're not even remotely in that league, but we are in a league to be able to engage seriously with both the Americans and the Chinese and with the South Koreans with respect to what our policy would be.
Is that a fair assessment?
12:55 p.m.
As an Individual
I think it is, but we have to bring something to the table. That means credibility and that means experience with North Korea.
I agree also with the second-track type of approach, but it's really hard to talk to so-called ordinary North Korean citizens. We have to try it all. No country has any monopoly on wisdom. Certainly the Chinese and the Americans don't. I think we can contribute to a rational, long-term, strategic type of dialogue.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Finally, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but would you say that in your view we have been disengaging more than engaging in the last few years?
1 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. There has been an attitude, I think, when looking at the Koreas, of “South Korea, democratic, good” and “North Korea, communist, bad; don't deal with them”.
One can cite other examples of that in terms of Canadian foreign policy, which I believe is wrong.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
It's bad tactically for the country in terms of our own interests. You have to be able to talk to everybody.
1 p.m.
Conservative
June 4th, 2013 / 1 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Look, I'd like the committee to pursue this longer. I think there are a lot of questions here. I think we've touched on it, so....
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Okay, we'll come back to it.
Thank you very much to our witnesses. Thank you very much for being here today.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.