Foreign Affairs committee  Just to add to that, as long as China thinks they can control North Korea and they have the skin in the game, I think China's long-term goal is to keep North Korea around as long as possible, for the very reason Marius mentioned, which is the fact that they don't want a hostile n

Foreign Affairs committee  I think to a certain degree, at least in Beijing. The Chinese people may differ, but at least in Beijing there is still that mentality. The whole historical barbarians-at-the-gate mentality is still there to a certain degree. North Korea's stability is definitely an issue as wel

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, it takes two to tango, and the North Koreans may not necessarily agree with that model—

Foreign Affairs committee  From what I understand about North Korea...and to a certain degree because of its opaqueness it's hard to understand North Korea. But if you can look at it, North Korea's chief currency, the thing that keeps the glue together in the regime, is control. They see any economic openi

Foreign Affairs committee  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

Foreign Affairs committee  There are a lot of organizations on the ground that are actually participating in such activities. The foremost organization right now is a media outfit called Radio Free Asia. It's modelled after Radio Free Europe, in the past. It is supported by the U.S. state department and br

Foreign Affairs committee  It is out and in. But there are also organizations that are actually smuggling DVDs and USB keys into North Korea and distributing them for free so that North Koreans get a glimpse of the outside world.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure, thank you very much. I trust that with a prepared statement—I'm not going to read directly from it, but I will make a few remarks from the statement itself. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me here. I wear several hats within the North Korean inte