Special Discussion with Ambassador Philip Goldberg
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North Korea is the impossible state. It's a place that stumped leaders and policymakers for more than three decades. It has a complex history, and it has become the United States' top national security priority. Each week on this show, we'll talk with the people who know the most about North Korea. It's June 11th, 2024, and welcome to another episode of the Impossible State Podcast at CSIS.

I'm your host, Victor Cha, Senior Vice President for Asia, Korea Chair at CSIS, and Professor at Georgetown University. And we are very excited today to have on the podcast, all the way from Seoul, South Korea, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, the Honorable Philip Goldberg.

I'm going to properly introduce him because he has an amazing wealth of experience when it comes to U.S. diplomacy. As I said, he is currently the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, confirmed by the Senate in May of 2022.

Before that, he held a number of ambassadorial posts, and I would say probably makes you one of the, if not the most experienced diplomat, senior diplomat in the professional core of the State Department. He was ambassador to Columbia from 2019 to 2022.

He was charge d'affaires in Cuba in 2018. He was also ambassador to the Philippines, one of our largest embassies in Asia from 2013 to 2016, and as well as ambassador in Bolivia from 2006 to 2008. He was also assistant secretary in the Bureau for Intelligence and Research, otherwise known as INR. And for you Korea watchers out there,

Ambassador Goldberg's current stint as our chief representative in Seoul is not his only experience with Korea because in 2009 and 2010, he was the special envoy for sanctions implementation. I don't know if that's the right title. Special envoy. I remember back then we called you all special envoys. Yeah.

for sanctions implementation with regard to North Korea. He was also chief of mission in Kosovo, chief of mission in Chile. He holds the personal rank of career ambassador, which is the highest rank

distinction or rank in the professional foreign service at the State Department and has won numerous awards including the Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Award, the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award and the Silver Seal Medallion for Meritorious Service in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

He is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. Are you a Red Sox fan? Absolutely. Okay. Well, I'm a Yankees fan, so we can talk about that some other time. Well, not this year. We don't have to talk about it. Yeah.

And he's a graduate of Boston University. And before the Foreign Service, you were working in New York City, is that right? Yeah, that's right, at the United Nations as the liaison between the UN and the city government. Oh, I see. Before the Office of Foreign Missions was formed at the State Department, we actually did some of the work that they now do. I see, I see.

And then how did you end up deciding to go into the Foreign Service? Well, I was exposed to that world and all of the diplomats in New York, and it was almost by accident that I took the Foreign Service exam. One of my colleagues was doing it, and he ended up joining the Foreign Service too. In fact, two of the people who worked, three of the people who worked with me in that office, we all joined the Foreign Service around the same time. Oh, wow. That's a great story.

Anyway, it's a real pleasure to have you on the Impossible State podcast. I would have to say,

You know, we're a motley crew here and you're our most distinguished guest. Let's put it that way. You're very kind to say that, Victor. And I remember as you went through my resume, you know, we've had a lot of contact over the years, especially during that period when I was doing the sanctions implementation on North Korea. Yes, yes. Well, it's really good to see you. It's really good to have you in the studio here at CSIS in Washington, D.C. And that is because you're here for...

the chief admissions conference.

And so maybe we can start off by you telling us a little bit about what that is. Our viewers, listeners probably don't have an inside view of what the Chief of Missions is, but that would be great if you could tell us what you've been doing over the past week. Well, most of the Chiefs of Mission are ambassadors. There are a few who are chargés d'affaires or other ranks at an embassy or at a mission overseas. When

When I was in Kosovo, I was chief of mission, but we didn't have an embassy yet because it was not an independent country. So it might have a different title. But the chiefs of mission conference is to bring us all together, first in a global conference, and to bring us all together to discuss kind of generic themes that are affecting all of us, like Ukraine, Gaza,

how that is impacting various posts and policy and discussions. For example, in South Korea, there is all constant discussion about Ukraine and about Russia and Russia's relationship with Pyongyang. So again, even though we're discussing a global issue, South Korea is now a global pivotal state, and so there's a relationship to those issues.

And so we get together first in that global setting with all of us

And then the third day we split off into our respective regional bureaus and have discussions there. So the East Asian Pacific Bureau at the State Department, led by Dan Crittenbrink, then broke out into that for the day on Wednesday. And we discuss regional issues, things like China or other regional issues, Taiwan, DPRK.

and also administrative issues. Our budget, which is constantly being cut, and the need to economize as we always do. So that's why we get together. And also so the Secretary, Secretary Blinken spent a lot of time with us

can also articulate what he's thinking about on those big issues, but also on some of the smaller issues related to the State Department's operations. So that's what we were doing this week. And I guess it's also a good opportunity to see

Old friends and colleagues that are spread out all across the world. Right, absolutely. And people that you don't see often. In the case of the East Asian Pacific region, we saw each other, many of us in January, we had a regional conference also with the Indo-Pacific Command in Honolulu.

But a lot of people you don't see. And so, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. So I see people from over the years. It's really nice. But also hearing what's going on in their places and in their communities.

relationships and also what's happening in their embassies and what morale is like and all of the issues that we deal with on a daily basis. What is the our embassy in Seoul? I mean you were in the Philippines right which is I think one of our biggest embassies. Our embassy in Seoul how relatively speaking how big is it? Well it's not as big as the Philippines and it's not as big as Colombia in part because we don't have agencies such as

The USAID or in the case of Columbia, the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, is very prominent because of the nature of the work that we do there.

So those are bigger embassies and the State Department of course provides the platform at embassies but it has a country team that has all kinds of different agencies and departments that have specific interests in those countries and carry some of the workload of course.

So this actually Seoul is a smaller embassy, but with in some ways bigger issues, huge strategic issues for the United States because of the threats from the DPRK, but also the new relationship or the kind of revitalized relationship that we have with the ROK.

the huge economic interests on both sides and what we're doing to really expand our alliance into new areas. So it's a smaller staff maybe, but in some ways even bigger issues. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I wanted to talk with you about some of those issues, but the first thing I wanted to get your sense of is, as I introduced in your bio, you've been all over the world. You've been representing the United States at the highest levels all over the world, many different posts as ambassador.

first time, I think, in country in Korea. Is that right? Or is it junior office or your first time in country in Korea? So when you compare Korea to all your other experiences, sort of what stands out, what has stood out for you? What is interesting or different about your service in Korea? I think that some of the

issues that I just mentioned make this a kind of different experience. Columbia, which I know very well, we were dealing with drugs and immigration, but in some ways a smaller portfolio, but important issues. And we do all kinds of other things, and there was an economic relationship and business relationships.

but it's on a different scale with Korea. So professionally, on the substantive side, there is just much more. You know, we had to deal with early on in my stay in Seoul issues like the Inflation Reduction Act and what that meant for Korean companies and especially Hyundai-Kia and how we would settle some of the issues on the implementation of that law.

It was a challenge, and it was intellectually challenging, too, to have to grapple with all of the intricate parts of the law. Same with the CHIPS Act, and we're going through many of those issues at the moment still, and we've done very well with them, and all of those are going to, I think, in the end, benefit Korea mightily.

But there are challenges, both in a diplomatic sense, but also for business and our economic well-being. And economic statecraft is an important part of what we do. So that's on a different scale, I think, than other places I've been.

But there are still those other issues that I've dealt with in Kosovo and somewhat in Colombia of war and peace because of the North Korea challenge and all of their provocations and threats. So it brings in that element. We have 28,500 troops there with USFK and the UN command. And so that too brings those issues into play.

And so it's just a really, in some ways, more multifaceted than some of the other places I've been. That's interesting. So in some of the other places you mentioned, there may be like one sort of big issue that was like, in one case, it might have been the drug issue.

Whereas in Korea, it's just a multitude of things, larger scale, and there are new things that are coming up, like you said, the Chipsack, the IRA. Right. Coming down the road, there could be other things. Right, that have both government touch points, but also you have to deal a lot with businesses, the J-Bulls in Korea, and it's just multidimensional. Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. Well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about some of these issues. You're ambassador now at a time when the alliance is in really great shape. I mean, thanks to your hard work and your team's hard work, the alliance is in great shape. Views of the United States alliance, alliance with the United States, I think are at all-time highs now in the South Korean public.

You spoke to it a little bit already, but what have been sort of, what do you see as sort of the priorities in the alliance relationship going forward, the things that you've been working very hard on and the things that you see coming down the road? We had two very important events last year when first President Yoon paid his state visit to Washington.

And during that visit, we issued the Washington Declaration, which includes the formation of the Nuclear Consultative Group, which provides more reassurance to South Korea on our nuclear umbrella, on our complete backing of South Korea and its people in the face of these provocation and threats from North Korea.

We also at the same time issued a joint statement that broadens and deepens this relationship into new areas of technology and science and so of assistance programs where we work together in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific Islands. So it's a much broader relationship now and so we're branching into new areas and it fits very closely with the

global pivotal state that South Korea is now working towards and in some ways has already accomplished. Both because of its soft power, which is incredible these days, everything from K-pop and K-music and K-dramas and K-movies,

but also its economic might. And so it's playing a different role. And that joint statement reflects these new areas where we're working together, and that's very important. Then there was the Trilateral Summit at Camp David, which was also something that was

very new and exciting because while there had been trilateral meetings before and attempts to really get the three countries together, I think it goes back to President Yoon's very courageous decision politically to try to repair Korean-Japanese relations.

And it started a virtuous cycle that had reciprocal measures from Japan, from Prime Minister Kishida. It started with the announcement that President Yun made about compensation in

and addressing one of the historical issues. Not very easy in Korea, but he did this in the interest, I think, of the future. So just for our viewers, you're referring to...

the South Korean government's decision to compensate the workers out of the Supreme Court case that they had. Right, and forming a foundation to actually deal with that issue. Okay.

That led to President Yoon visiting Japan, Prime Minister Kishida paying a reciprocal visit to Seoul, then Yoon being invited to the G7 summit that Kishida was hosting, a joint visit they made to, and symbolically very important, to a memorial to Korean victims of the atomic bomb in Japan.

Hiroshima. So all of this, as I say, is part of a process. And then President Biden and we all took good advantage of that by bringing us all together. Like-minded countries, democratic countries concerned about many of the same issues in the region and the world. And we're working together on many of those issues that I mentioned in the joint statement, we're now doing also trilaterally. So

That really formed the basis of what we're doing in our work agenda right now is implementing all of that. So you seem to be saying the message is that the scope of the alliance really has grown in terms of not just the things they're covering bilaterally, but those have global implications, the things they're working on. Absolutely. It does. Everywhere from...

Ukraine to the Middle East, but back especially one of the issues that was touched on in the Camp David agreements was freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait. So all of those are very important for bringing like-minded democratic countries together, especially as we face a wave of authoritarianism in the world. Yeah.

I don't think we've ever seen the Korean government make statements like they did on Taiwan and on South China Sea. Those were both in the state visit as well as in Camp David, right? Both. But the one at Camp David was very far-reaching. It actually referred to China's illegal and dangerous activities in the second time at Seoul, which continues to be a problem. That's where that

abandoned ship of the Philippines is located. And so, yeah, it's really forward-leaning, as have been President Yun's statements about Taiwan and the need to handle any resolution of that issue peacefully. Yeah. And then I can't remember where you said it, but there was also some reference to

peace in the Taiwan Straits being an internet, having internet. He did. That was not necessarily the view from Beijing. Yeah, they weren't already happy with that. Terrific. So let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned the state visit last year as well as the Camp David trilateral meeting.

So there was a bunch of things that happened in the last week that kind of follow on from those very important meetings in 2023. Last week, there was a trilateral vice foreign ministers meeting that took place at Deputy Secretary Campbell's farm.

I had a chance to meet the Vice Foreign Minister from Korea in Seoul before he came to the US.

So what is your sense of the readout from that? Like what was accomplished there? Clearly it's in the tradition of continuing to institutionalize this trilateral relationship, but you know the the deputy vice foreign minister meetings, that's where real work gets done, right? I mean, that's you know, there's ceremonial stuff at the top level, but real work gets done at that at that deputy secretary level.

Well, so absolutely that's the case. And, you know, so we talked about some of the initiatives that are in train in technology and technology

bringing together the three countries on all kinds of new initiatives that we're working on. And I'm referring to the press statement that we put out from FarmLat. We called it, because of Trilat, we called it FarmLat. That's great. I love it. So, yeah, no, it was an extravaganza. It was really great.

So such items as a trilateral technology leaders program, which will be hosted by Johns Hopkins, SICE, which will train mid-level policymakers from the three countries in critical areas like emerging tech, semiconductors, supply chain issues, committed to supporting the rescue and recovering efforts in Papua New Guinea.

which has suffered from all kinds of flooding and other natural disasters. And USAID is going to provide field-level support, including last-mile humanitarian logistics and distribution of aid. So those are the kinds of things that we can do together and show, especially the Pacific Islands, that we're serious about trying to really –

not just work together but also to multiply our ability to

to have funds available. So those are some of the things. We're working on a quantum physics trilateral with universities, Seoul National University, Tokyo University, and University of Chicago. If you're wondering why University of Chicago, it might have had something to do with our ambassador in Japan, who was once mayor of Chicago, but Ram has done tremendous work on that.

So, we're making efforts on how to work closely with ASEAN, the PICS, the Blue Pacific Initiative. So, again, we're going to have the Trilateral Youth Summit in Pusan this summer, which was an outcome of the Camp David Agreement. So, we discussed that and how that's moving along.

And also on the military front and security front, you know, there are all kinds of things going on. Just today or yesterday, there was a new Coast Guard exercise between the three countries. So there is a lot going forward. And so that's what was under discussion. Yeah, yeah. The Trilateral Youth Summit, the one in Pusan,

Some of our students, our Georgetown students are going to be participating in that. I can't remember if they're representing the US or Korea, but I know a lot of our students applied for that. That's great. So I assume you're going to be participating in that. Sure will. Okay, you can look out for them. So, I mean, this is just an amazing list of things and

it's sort of really sort of showing the deep roots that are being dug in this trilateral relationship so that it can continue, right? It's not just one summit meeting in August last year. It's something that will continue. Speaking of sort of these sort of detailed at the granular level some of this cooperation, the other thing that we noticed was that on the sidelines of the Shangri-La

this week, the Koreans and the Japanese seem to have reached a defense agreement in terms of how they engage with each other. You know, there was an incident a few years ago in which there was

you know, a semi-hostile encounter between Japanese and Korean vessels at sea. From a U.S. government perspective, what is the view on this agreement? I think they are close to putting that to rest, which will open up new opportunities, I think, for cooperation. There'll be less resistance to some of the

of that incident, which prevented the two sides from having a really fluid relationship on exercises and the rest. And I think that's great. We've revived the GSOMIA, the intelligence agreement between the two. We're working on a new agreement that's now in effect on sharing missile data in real time.

There are all kinds of new things that are going on that will bring the three together. So, yes, I think that putting that radar lock issue, which is what we call it, to rest, I think will go a long ways towards, again, furthering our goals of more cooperation. Yeah, and I think it also shows how committed...

the leaders of the two countries are because as you know, neither of them are very popular right now in their own countries and yet they're continuing to push on these things which aren't necessarily popular but they're clearly in the national interest of these countries. And let me, not just because I'm ambassador and so again stress the

role that President Yun has played in putting this all together and enabling this process to move forward. In his deep commitment to resolving some of the long-standing issues with Japan that's allowed us to come together as a trilateral, too. It is politically remarkable

And it also is due, in my view, to his deep conviction that this is the right thing to do for the national interest of the ROK. And it seems to be working. So I can't stress that enough. Right.

So I love this term of farm lat that you've given to this trilateral. But of course, that was not the only trilateral that took place. There was also a trilateral in Seoul between Japan, South Korean and Chinese leaders. We used to call it the plus three trilateral. I don't know what they call it now.

As you know better than I, the Koreans have really been focused on getting this trilateral restarted. It's not taking place for years, in part because of COVID, but also because of sort of tense relations. I'm not going to ask you to comment on what they discussed at the trilateral, but I think

Viewers are always interested in understanding how the U.S. government views things like this, this trilateral between our two allies and China. What does the U.S. government view on these things?

As you know, this is a long-standing process that has been going on, this trilateral between Japan, Korea, and China. I think it maybe has a little bit different dynamic now with the improved relations between Korea and Japan.

But I think what's happening really is a natural process of trying to manage relations, as we're doing too with China. That's true for Korea in a bilateral sense, but also in this trilateral sense of trying to have those agreements where we can and disagreements where we must and competition where we must.

And so I think that's what this is all about. So we're not concerned about it. It's part of a natural process. And we engage with China and are engaging more. Secretary Blinken's been there a couple of times over the last year, Secretary Yellen, Secretary Raimondo. So we have interaction at very high levels.

This brought the Chinese prime minister to Seoul, where he met with President Yoon bilaterally as well as the trilateral setting. Prime Minister Kishida, of course, was there as well. And it gave them a chance to have more discussions about improving Korean-Japan relations. So, yeah, we just see this as a...

as a process that is designed to manage those relationships. Yeah, okay, great. How are we doing on time? We're still good on time? I wanted to move for the last segment to North Korea and get your thoughts on North Korea.

So the news, obviously, over the past week has been this, the sending of these balloons by the North Koreans into South Korea. They're also, they were also reports of jamming GPS along the, along the disputed water line between the two countries.

So, wanted to get your thoughts on these late, and of course they're firing a lot of missiles. Right. And so, but we saw really a combination of these three things over the past week, and I just wanted to get your views on that. Are you worried about escalation? Are things stable? How are the US and the ROK looking at these actions?

Well, obviously, we consider the balloons filled with trash and maybe excrement. I don't know whether that's absolutely the case or not, but even the thought of it is outrageous.

and as our spokesman at the State Department said, childish. I mean, it doesn't-- we're interested in reducing tensions, not in increasing them. But I think that it's natural for the ROK and President Yoon and his government to take measures to show that we are going to continue to deter these provocations as best we can through building up the alliance

and by showing resolve. And that's what we're doing. Now, whether these tensions are different than earlier tensions, you know, I think that there are things going on and there are dynamics going on that

might militate in a different direction, in part because Pyongyang is now engaged in this relationship with Moscow. They're trying to do something or at least manage whatever relationship they have with China at the same time. And this is part of the back and forth between the two. And also their new...

And so there may be, I hope, a little bit of caution on that side. This also has to do with the leaflets that go north and in part their response from the north. We, of course, believe in free speech and the rest, but we also understand that we need to reduce tensions, not increase them.

Whether this is a defining moment, I don't think so, but it's just part of something that's going on, especially with the North Korean announcement of a new policy about not wanting unification, two separate states, South Korea being the enemy. That's new, and it's ideologically new for the Korean Workers' Party, for Kim Jong-un.

And so we have to work through some of that as well. But what they're doing with these balloons are outrageous and so counterproductive to that reduction of tensions. And we'll stand by our OK allies, absolutely, in all of this. But there are other consequences to it as well, having to do with the DMZ and the...

comprehensive military agreement which has already been suspended in part by the South Koreans now in full but the North Koreans had ended it anyway. You know, it's something that we watch and the other point I'd make, Victor, is that we're ready for anything. General La Camera, our USFK, UNC commander, CFC commander,

You know, they follow this hour by hour, minute by minute, and we at the embassy do too. We're ready for anything that happens. We're not letting our guard down at all because it's very unpredictable, as you know, as the title of your program indicates, the impossible state. But we're ready, and we are standing by our allies.

We are discussing the full range of our military and security policies to make sure that the ROK is reassured and the people of the ROK are reassured of the American commitment, which shouldn't be in doubt. Those 28,500 troops that are in South Korea are evidence of that long-term commitment.

Well, that's actually a great message upon which to end the conversation.

Ambassador Goldberg, thank you so much for joining us on The Impossible State, joining us in the studio. Usually you're obviously in Seoul and quite busy, but we're so glad that you took time out of your week in D.C. among all your meetings and everything else you have to do to spend some time with us. So thank you very much. Thanks very much, Victor. And thank you to our listeners and our viewers for watching another episode of The Impossible State. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

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