The Problem of North Korea
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The US and North Korea have been flexing their military muscles in recent weeks, testing and deploying new missiles.
President Trump has said North Korea is "a big big problem" that he will deal with "strongly". This week he took the extraordinary step of briefing the entire US Senate on American options to deal with the North's nuclear programme, as American troops conducted live-fire exercises near the North Korean border. Senators said the briefing was "sobering".
Here, David Aaronovich gets his own briefing, from one of America's top former diplomats in the region and from experts in Beijing and Seoul.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Daniel Russel: President Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, now Diplomat-in-Residence at the Asia Society Policy Institute
Yanmei Xie: Chinese foreign policy analyst, formerly with the International Crisis Group, now with Gavekal Dragonomics.
Jenny Lee: Opened the first western news bureau in North Korea, now with the Wilson Centre in Seoul
Producer: Neal Razzell Research: Sarah Shebbeare
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:06.0 | In this episode, we'll be getting briefed on the dangerous situation in Korea. |
| 0:11.0 | What are the roots of the confrontation there? |
| 0:14.0 | Why does the North want long-range nuclear weapons? |
| 0:17.0 | And can the Trump administration stop them from getting them? |
| 0:20.0 | North Korea is a big, big problem, and we will deal with that very strongly. |
| 0:29.9 | Yesterday, the U.S. deployed new missile defenses in South Korea, |
| 0:34.2 | hours before President Trump brought the entire U.S. Senate to the White House |
| 0:38.7 | for an extraordinary briefing about North Korea. |
| 0:42.1 | Afterwards, the senators said it was sobering. |
| 0:45.0 | North Korea is the most dangerous spot on the planet right now. |
| 0:48.3 | And Kim Jong-un is a dangerous and wildly unpredictable dictator, |
| 0:54.7 | who unfortunately has a significant arsenal of nuclear weapons. |
| 0:58.8 | Without getting into the details of the briefing, |
| 1:00.8 | I think what we have to do is recognize that we have abandoned the doctrine of strategic patients, |
| 1:05.2 | which was basically a doctrine of if you act bad enough for long enough, you get what you want. |
| 1:09.4 | U.S. senators have had their briefing. |
| 1:11.6 | Now, you and I can have ours. |
| 1:14.4 | And tonight, we'll hear things the senators didn't. |
| 1:17.3 | Voices not just from the US, but China and the Korean Peninsula as well. |
| 1:22.3 | Step into the briefing room. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.