Name: North Korea’s Security Can Be Protected Without Nuclear Weapons
Uploaded: 2017-12-06
Duration: 5 min 3 s
Description: Terry Branstad, U.S. Ambassador to China, explains

Thank you for joining us, Mr. Ambassador. You're welcome. I'm glad to be here. You got a front row insight into the fascinating dynamic between the president of the United States, president of China because you were, apart from everything else, with them on their tour of the Forbidden City. So I'd love to start with your impressions and what you remember about what they talked about, and particularly what you think was communicated explicitly and implicitly during that time together. Well first of all, I'd say I think the chemistry between the two leaders, between President Xi and President Trump is very good. And the Chinese did an outstanding job of making the president feel very welcome. And they had some very frank discussions. Now, some of those, the night that they had dinner together in the [ UNKNOWN ] were kinda private. It's between them, and their spouses and interpreters. But then we spent a whole day In the Great Hall of the People and there were some very frank and open discussions there. But I'm encouraged about the fact that their first meeting was in Mar- a- Lago, Florida in April and I think that went very well, they met again in Hamburg, of course they had the meeting last month In Beijing. But there's also been telephone calls, I think ten of them, and that's a extraordinary number. And obviously, there's some really critical issues that we're facing. The biggest one is the threat from North Korea. I'm encouraged by the fact that China and the United States have really been leaders in passing two significant United Nations Security Council resolutions placing sanctions, additional sanctions on North Korea. And I think China is working to enforce those sanctions. President Trump feels and. I feel that we need to do even more and we are continuing to have discussions with the Chinese and other countries throughout the world on what more can be done to convince North Korea that what they are doing is a suicide mission that makes no sense. That they need to. We have agreement. That we wanna see a denuclearized Korean peninsula, but we need to see North Korea discontinue the nuclear tests. And I was in Jilin province which borders on North Korea. Three days after they had the last nuclear test up there. May felt it, because it was like six point something on the Richter scale. And, I know they are also working to implement the sanctions, but we need to look at additional things that can be done to try to convince North Korea they needed discontinue the The missile launchers and the nuclear test. Even after that latest test, Secretary Tillerson said that diplomatic options remain viable and open for now. That's true. What's the state of that diplomacy and what to you see unfolding on what time frame? Well, there is discussions going on between our two countries and also other countries, in fact I met with Prime Minister Trudeau here, he's gonna be meeting with Secretary Tillerson I think on the 19th of December. There's a possibility of. Canada working with the United States and with other countries on looking what can be done. So, we're all trying to look at what can be done to stop a North Korea from this suicide mission they're on and convince them that their security can be Protected without nuclear weapons and the real question is- Is that eralistic given how profound their commitment to developing those weapons over so many years has been? Here's the thng, if they all of a sudden see They basically alienated almost everybody in the world, including their long time allies. And that things are getting worse for them. And there really isn't a future in the direction they're going. Maybe then they will decide there might be a better a path and certainly the present direction is one that's dangerous and not only, it's dangerous to everybody but it's certainly dangerous to North Korea as the protagonists that's doing these illegal and Dangerous nuclear tests and missile launches. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Terry Branstad, U.S. Ambassador to China, explains