Interviews with Kim Seung-chul

As far as how the United States’ leadership can resolve the North Korean issue, I personally believe the United States has made several mistakes in terms of its strategic judgment on the Korean peninsula.

First, North Korea and China are very closely linked. The Chinese government wants to maintain the status quo. China wants the North Korean regime to exist as it does today. It does not want North Korea to change or to collapse.

China’s strategy towards North Korea has existed for a long time, even before China became a G-2 [Group of Two] country. If China did not want North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, North Korea would not have them.

[The Group of Two or G2 was a concept proposed by economist Fred Bergsten and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to describe the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China.]

In the 1990s, when North Korea was developing nuclear weapons, if China had closed supply channels for the materials needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, then North Korea wouldn’t have been able to build them..

In the [2000s], we held a series of Six Party Talks and I think these negotiations benefitted China diplomatically and politically more so than anyone else. I think it was the United States that bore the greatest costs out of these negotiations. The United States had a challenge in democratizing North Korea even before China became a G2 country.

[Launched in 2003, the Six Party Talks were aimed at ending North Korea´s nuclear program through negotiations involving China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia.]

I do want to emphasize that democratizing North Korea as quickly as possible is the way to tackle issues on the Korean peninsula and to keep China in check. If the United States wants to be involved in Asian matters seriously, then I think it must work towards democratizing North Korea.

Kim Seung-chul is the founder of North Korea Reform Radio and a passionate advocate for freedom of information. Kim grew up in North Korea where all media is completely controlled by the regime. Desperate for alternative sources of information, he would listen to illegal foreign radio broadcasts targeted at North Koreans. As a result of his exposure to independent media, Kim started questioning his country’s totalitarian system.

Trained as a civil engineer, Kim was selected to work on an international construction project in Siberia. He was amazed at how people in Russia’s most isolated region still had access to basic necessities that were unavailable to many in North Korea. Kim decided to escape and start a new life in South Korea. Once there, he launched shortwave radio programming that targets North Korea’s elite who Kim believes will lead the country’s liberalization. Remembering his own experiences with foreign radio, Kim made it his mission to deliver alternative sources of information to his people and inspire change. As such, North Korea Reform Radio delivers news and programming on leadership, reform, and liberalization that offers elites different perspectives on North Korean society and political philosophy.