Moon Jae-in Quotes

If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.

If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.

If the United States credibly threatens to treat Pakistan like it does Iran, Pakistan’s leaders would find it best to cooperate.

China, North Korea's last ally in the world has just voted agaisnt them [in the United Nations]. What would you do if you thought every country in the world was against you and you wanted to survive? You would buy insurance. And the best insurance you could get to prevent invasion would be nuclear weapons, and that is just what North Korea has done. So now, when the President [Trump] threatens them, what do they do? They go out and buymore insurance.

The key thing in Northeast Asia is North Korea. They are unpredictable; they are developing their nuclear capabilities and their missiles.

To the extent that anyone has leverage over North Korea, it's China.

You have North Korea, you have nuclear weapons, and China could solve that problem. And they're not helping us at all.

Our goal there, in my view, is to work and lean strongly on China to put as much pressure. China is one of the few major countries in the world that has significant support for North Korea, and I think we got to do everything we can to put pressure on China. I worry very much about an isolated, paranoid country with atomic bombs.

Every time North Korea commits an additional provocation, the U.N. Security Council passes another resolution. But when it comes to dialogue, currently there is nothing set. I hope to have frank and open discussions with President Trump on this issue.

Russians are concerned by North Korea. I mean there's - this is getting kind of close to home for them. And so they're concerned. And I think certainly what we're going to start doing is rallying the troops again and say, ok, what do we need to do next?

Kim Jong-Un is a dangerous leader, without a doubt. And both Republican and Democrat administrations have been completely ineffective in dealing with him. So we must continue to isolate him. We will need China as part of that strategy.

The only country that can stop North Korea is China.

We probably could more successfully resolve the North Korean nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning. We could successfully resolve what American leaders seem to perceive as an Iranian nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning.

The North Koreans have gained, or bought, a lot of time through the six-party-talks framework to pursue their own agenda.

In North Korea, grass is a vegetable eaten by the people, and they've got nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. So, something more stringent than what's been done to North Korea is going to have to work; otherwise, a military strike is the only option.

With regard to North Korea, between myself and President Obama earlier, with regard to the so-called launch of satellite, the missile launch, we shared the view that it undermines the efforts of the various countries concerned to achieve the resolution through dialogue.

To deal with the nuclear proliferation problem with North Korea and Iran, we and our allies need a coordinated carrot and stick approach. But we have to cook our carrots and our European allies have to sharpen their sticks

Anyone who understands the rudiments of politics doesn't say, 'We will stop Iran's oil exports'... we have been the guarantor of the regional waterway's security throughout history.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

Of other countries, to impose economic sanctions, it'd really begin to dry up the enormous amount of money coming into North Korea, a lot of it from China - from Chinese banks - whereas, if we sanction the Chinese banks, there could be friction with China. But this is something we're going to have to face.

China is the one, the only one, that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy, fat kid that's running North Korea.

I think what you can see is that we have worked very closely with China. China has really stood up in putting the pressure on North Korea.

A feasible North Korea strategy must consider how to reassure China that our objectives on the peninsula are not aggressive.

Living with a nuclear North Korea could give its leaders the confidence to act more aggressively versus South Korea. It could also, over time, drive both South Korea and Japan, as well as countries farther afield such as Vietnam, to reconsider their non-nuclear postures. The stability of a critical region of the world would suddenly be in doubt.

While our nation's attention is rightly focused on the Middle East, the North Korean threat has grown exponentially, while there seems to be a falling asleep, so to speak, at the switch when it comes to North Korea.