Will potential U.S.-North Korea talks lead anywhere?

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• Judy Woodruff:

  We return to our top story, President Trump's surprise acceptance of the offer from North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, to meet.

  We examine what's at stake with Michael Pillsbury. He has been advising the Trump administration on Korea. He is also a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he directs the Center for Chinese strategy. And Sung-Yoon Lee is an assistant professor of Korean studies at Tufts University.

  And we welcome both of you to the program. Thank you very much.

  Michael Pillsbury, to you first.

  Should President Trump have agreed to this meeting?

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Yes, absolutely.

  I think the issue, though, is whether there should be conditions attached that the North Koreans have to fulfill before the trip happens. As you know, the president was very clear that the date and the place are yet to be negotiated.

  So his agreement to the meeting is subject to quite a few other decisions being made. But, overall, this is really a chance for him to become a great president in foreign policy. I wouldn't rule out the Nobel Peace Prize and all kinds of breakthroughs. But we're in the very first phase of this today.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Sung-Yoon Lee, should the president have done this?

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  Well, how to ascertain, how to understand Kim Jong-un's sudden dramatic outreach as of New Year's Day.

  Most likely, he didn't wake up on New Year's Day and had a moment of epiphany and decided he's going to a nice guy heretofore. More likely is the fact that Kim feels the pinch from meaningful sanctions enforcement built up over the past year, but more likely than that, this was all premeditated, preplanned. It's certainly not unprecedented.

  Kim is taking a page out of his daddy's playbook from the year 2000.

• Michael Pillsbury:

  That's true.

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  That year, in June, Kim Jong Il held the first ever inter-Korean summit with the South Korean president, who, we found later, had paid Kim Jong Il $500 million for the privilege of making that pilgrimage to Pyongyang.

  And then, after having softened up South Korea, he turned to the United States and sent — and this was unprecedented — a special envoy to the U.S. president. So, Vice Marshal Jo, the highest ranking military man next only to Kim, visited Washington in early October, conveying the message, invitation to President Kim from his boss, and Clinton was amenable to actually making a visit.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Right.

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  He was keen on it, and sent his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. And there she was three weeks later toasting Kim Jong Il.

  So don't be surprised if Kim, in the weeks ahead, in trying to persuade President Trump to actually make the visit, sends the first sister, his sister who charmed people, melted hearts and minds when she just showed up and flashed a few smiles in the South.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But just to move ahead, it sounds as if, Michael Pillsbury, Professor Lee is saying, this could just be a trap, that it's the beginning of something that won't lead anywhere.

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Well, he's stealing my lines.

  I was going to tell you the story of 2000 and the decision then that President Clinton made that he wouldn't accept the invitation to go to Pyongyang.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Right.

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Instead, he would send Madeleine Albright, who then advised him not who make the trip, because the chances for real progress didn't exist.

  So, he's quite rightly pointing this out this experience from 2000 that I think affects the Trump team as they think about what to do next. It's why they want to have some conditions before they go.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, let me ask you right now, what should those conditions be? And we heard the president's press secretary, Sarah Sanders, say today that certain actions have to be taken if this meeting is to going to take place.

• Michael Pillsbury:

  The Trump White House has not spelled out the conditions yet.

  They have implied that at least what the South Koreans brought from their meetings have to be implemented. So, there's a certain amount of uncertainty, which is very common in diplomacy, as you know, about exactly what North Korea has to do.

  It's not an unconditional promise that I will meet you somewhere in the world and we will have dinner. It's more than that. And both sides now are going to have to have a secret channel to discuss what exactly are these conditions.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, we don't know what those conditions are.

  But, Professor Lee, if those conditions include, for example, certainly no nuclear testing, no belligerent moves, is North Korea prepared to do that? How far do you think North Korea is prepared to go to have this meeting take place?

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  Well, you see, North Korea has conditioned the world to really lower the bar when it comes to engaging North Korea.

  What Kim conveyed to President Trump through the South Korean envoys is that now he is amenable to talking about denuclearization and that he will not conduct any missile or nuclear tests in the meantime. Those activities, of course, we know are prohibited by more than 10 U.N. Security Council resolutions.

  So the mere utterance of abstention from illicit activities is no concession at all. Fortunately, we have the CliffsNotes, preconditions for suspending and terminating sanctions which are codified in the sanctions legislation that was signed into law by President Obama two years ago, Sections 401, 402.

  They explicitly state the preconditions, which are North Korea has to make a meaningful step towards denuclearization, stop censoring the North Korean people, release foreign detainees, abide by the international norms.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But we don't — if I may…

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  Or, as a recipient nation…

• Judy Woodruff:

  I was just going to say, if I may interrupt…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  As a recipient nation…

• Judy Woodruff:

  Just to move this along, because we only have a few minutes left here.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Those aren't the conditions that the Trump White House is talking about.

• Judy Woodruff:

  That this White House is going to…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Michael Pillsbury:

  He's talking about something quite different.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But do you — to get to something…

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Sure.

• Judy Woodruff:

  … more fundamental, Michael Pillsbury, is — does anyone in the White House believe that Kim Jong-un is actually prepared to dismantle his nuclear program?

• Michael Pillsbury:

  It depends how you define dismantle.

  The Trump White House has some very experienced talent matched by people at State and Defense and CIA. They have been through the history of the mistakes, the deception, the errors.

  They have got a vision, as I understand it, which will be worked out. One of the issues, for example, is, where will the meeting take place? Should it be in Switzerland, where the North Korean leader can see where he went to school?

• Judy Woodruff:

  Does that really matter that much, where it takes place?

• Michael Pillsbury:

  It matters if it's Beijing.

  I happen to support Beijing, because I believe China is our partner in this. And it's quite important today that the Trump White House and the Chinese released two different versions what happened in the phone call today between Xi Jinping and President Trump.

  The Chinese view is that they are irreplaceable, they are part of this. I get the impression they would be happy to host the summit in Beijing and then help us with implementation.

  The other idea is to go to the DMZ in the big long building there. So that's one of maybe five or six major decisions yet to be worked out.

• Judy Woodruff:

  A lot to be worked out.

• Michael Pillsbury:

  But we have started. President Trump has started. That's the good news.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Professor Sung-Yoon Lee, let me just quickly come back to you.

  Do you believe the North is prepared to go ahead with denuclearization, to dismantle its nuclear program?

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  Well, in the history of denuclearization, only four nations that possessed nuclear weapons have bargained them away.

  And in each of those instances, following a regime change, a new leader. The former Soviet republics Kazakstan, Ukraine and Belarus in the early '90s bargained them away. So did South Africa when it ended its oppressive systematic racial repression.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Michael Pillsbury:

  No, no, no, South Africa did not bargain them away. South Africa gave them away unilaterally. That's closer to the North Korean model that we're hoping for.

• Sung-Yoon Lee:

  Due to sanctions enforcement and a lot of interpretational pressure.

  We have not seen the kind of meaningful sanctions enforcement that Obama implemented against Iran in getting Iran back to the negotiating table. It took five years. Billions of dollars in fines were levied against friendly nations, the biggest bank in France. Nothing on that scale has been tried against China's state-owned enterprises and banks.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Professor Lee, I think your point is that it's difficult — that the example North Korea sees is, it doesn't necessarily pay to dismantle ones its nuclear program.

  Much more to talk about here. We are…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Michael Pillsbury:

  One sentence of good news. Xi and Trump agreed today the sanctions remain in place up to the meeting. So there's no purchase of this meeting by softening the sanctions.

• Judy Woodruff:

  China sanctions and other sanction remains in place?

• Michael Pillsbury:

  Yes.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Much more to talk about. We are going to be coming back to this a lot between now and the time that this meeting may or may not take place.

  Michael Pillsbury here, Professor Sung-Yoon Lee, thank you very much.