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American Morning

Today President Bush Travels to China

Aired February 20, 2002 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, the president's trip through Asia. Today he travels to China. Yesterday he paid a visit to U.S. troops stationed along the DMZ, the heavily fortified border separating North and South Korea.

Earlier, Mr. Bush said the burden of proof is on North Korea to show it doesn't belong on his axis of evil.

John King is traveling with the president. He joins us now with more from Seoul -- John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening from Seoul, Paula, to you. Good morning back in the States.

Mr. Bush and his host, the Korean President Kim Dae-jung, exchanging toasts tonight, both leaders trying to emphasize in public that they see no major differences in how the United States or the South Koreans view relations in just how to deal with North Korea. But more evidence today of the language from President Bush that the South Koreans simply would prefer not to hear.

It came as Mr. Bush toured the demilitarized zone, the two and a half mile swath still separating North from South Korea, nearly 50 years now after the end of the Korean War.

Mr. Bush looked across from an outpost into the North and he was told by a member of the U.S. Army a story. On the other side of the two and a half mile divide, a museum. The North Koreans call it a peace museum. And in it are two axes on display, those axes used to kill two U.S. servicemen back in 1976. After being told that story, Mr. Bush turned to reporters and once again spoke the words about the North that the South would prefer never passed the president's lips.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have a peace museum there and the axes that were used to slaughter two U.S. soldiers are in the peace museum. No wonder I think they're evil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The goal of the day had been to strike a much more balanced tone. Mr. Bush out in public with President Kim, one stop, the Durason Railway Station (ph). That is a railway President Kim wants to build from South Korea into North Korea, part of his efforts eventually aimed at reunification, in the short-term aimed at building more economic and cultural ties.

The two men celebrating that railway station. But the tracks stop just south of the DMZ because the North has not kept its end of the deal, has not yet built the tracks on its side. Mr. Bush suggesting in a speech at the railway station that yes, like President Kim, he supports the ultimate goal of reunification. In his view, Mr. Bush's view, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, doe not want to complete those train tracks because, Mr. Bush said, he's afraid his people might get a taste of freedom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: My vision is clear. I see a peninsula that is one day united in commerce and cooperation instead of divided by barbed wire and fear. Korean grandparents should be free to spend their final years with those they love. Korean children should never starve while a massive army is fed. No nation should be a prison for its own people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Mr. Bush said the United States nor South Korea, for that matter, had any intention of ever invading the North, but he also called the North a "despotic regime" and said the United States had a responsibility to stand up to North Korea and other nations developing weapons of mass destruction. So very delicate diplomacy here for the president today, on the other hand, standing side by side with President Kim Dae-jung and embracing the sunshine policy with the North. But the use of the word evil has his hosts here in the South worried the North Koreans won't sit down at the negotiating table any time soon -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, John, you just made it very clear how the South Koreans feel about this terminology, axis of evil. During your travels alongside the president, has anybody supported that language?

KING: Well, we did see some support in the streets here in Seoul. Most of the demonstrations against the U.S. president. But there were some South Korean war veterans, men who are strongly anti- communist who, of course, lost their colleagues, their comrades in arms, by the tens of thousands in the Korean War. Some of those veterans out in the streets supporting Mr. Bush.

And in Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi said he understood the phrase from Mr. Bush, but certainly the Japanese a bit nervous, as well, to the tough language. They want to get the nth back to the negotiating table. They think it will be less likely to sit down at any negotiations when you have a president of the United States already saying it's an evil regime -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, John King, thanks so much for that live update. Appreciate it.

The big question this hour, is the U.S. sending mixed messages to North Korea? North Korea may be a closed communist regime, but some say it shouldn't be on the president's short list. Experts say unlike Iraq, North Korea has shown its ability to honor international agreements and unlike Iran, it does not support international terrorism.

So is North Korea getting a bad rap?

Well, according to the "New York Times," North Korea is not Iran and it is not Iraq. It is a place where bad things are going on, but it has reached agreement with us and it has principally abided by them.

We are joined now by former State Department official Wendy Sherman, who is in Washington this morning.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning, Wendy.

WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Very good to be with you, Paula.

ZAHN: All right, you probably just heard in the run-up to John King's report the latest statements coming from President Bush where he basically says the burden of proof is on North Korea now to prove it doesn't belong on this short list. What do you think is left for North Korea to prove?

SHERMAN: I think that, first of all, what President Bush did in South Korea was very important, which is to stand with President Kim Dae-jung and to affirm our strong alliance with South Korea. When we have made progress with North Korea, it has been because North Korea could not drive a wedge between the United States and South Korea, and, for that matter, a wedge between us and Japan and China and Russia and the European Union in our efforts to stop North Korea from developing weapons of mass destruction.

There's no question that North Korea ought to take some steps here. It ought to agree to dialogue with the United States. I hope that the president stands by his commitment for unconditional negotiations without a preset agenda or preconditions so that the door can be opened again to dialogue. At the end of the Clinton administration, we were close to negotiating an agreement for a verifiable elimination of the terrible exports that President Bush has discussed and I'm glad to hear that President Bush has signaled that he's ready to start talking again.

ZAHN: So you...

SHERMAN: And now North Korea needs to say yes.

ZAHN: So you sound optimistic, then, that the Bush administration will follow up on the lead you say that was taken in the Clinton administration.

SHERMAN: Well, I hope that they are. I'm sounding optimistic because I think it's terribly important that those talks begin again in a very serious way. I think it's important that President Bush said that we are not about to invade North Korea or to begin a war which would be catastrophic on the Korean Peninsula. It would mean the cost of lives of probably hundreds of thousands of people.

So I think that was very important and a signal to North Korea that we are not about going to war with them, we are about dialogue with them and negotiation around an agenda that really deals with the security threats and the needs that North Korea has, as well.

So I do hope North Korea says yes to this and, in fact, calls the United States on this offer of dialogue and begins that negotiation.

ZAHN: The South Koreans have made it quite clear during this trip that they feel that the Bush policy runs counter to the sunshine policy, which is a policy of engagement with North Korea. In the end, do you think it was a mistake for President Bush to isolate North Korea as one of these partners in the axis of evil?

SHERMAN: As the "New York Times" pointed out and you just quoted, North Korea is not Iran. It is not Iraq. I understand the axis of evil as a rhetorical device to rally the American people for the war against terrorism and to stop weapons of mass destruction, but North Korea has negotiated agreements, the 1994 framework agreement to stop their production of fissile material, which is used to make nuclear weapons. And they have principally abided by that agreement.

So I think it's time to get started again. I think that North Korea also could take some additional steps. Chairman Kim Jong Il owes a return visit to Seoul. He really could make an enormous change in this situation if he told President Kim Dae-jung and the Korean people that he was coming to Seoul and if he signed one of those railway ties, as President Bush did.

So I think there are things that North Korea needs to do. But I think it's very important that in the behind-the-scenes channels, which I'm sure will start to go on, that the United States reiterates a commitment to beginning dialogue without conditions.

ZAHN: All right, Wendy Sherman, good to have you with us this morning. We appreciate your insights very much.

SHERMAN: Thank you.

ZAHN: Take care.

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