Peter Lewis: Asia Business Correspondent on Vladmir Putin and Kim Jong Un meeting in North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a pair of Pungsan dogs, a local breed, state media KCNA reported on Thursday. 

Asia Business Correspondent Peter Lewis told Heather du Plessis-Allan “Three’s very few places left that Putin can go to.” 

Lewis said “He’s become an international pariah because of the Ukraine war.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hither du Peter lewis our Asia business correspondents with US
Now Peter, Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good evening, head Peter.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'll tell you what I found fascinating about the Vladimir
Potan and Kam meeting is just how they're flaunting it
isn't that interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, it's partly because there's very few places left that
Vladimir Putin can go to to flaunt anything. He's sort
of become a bit of an international pariah since the
Ukraine War, and he wants to try and break that
isolation and tryumph cozy up to some other countries. But
he's got two problems. One is that he can't really

(00:36):
travel very far from Russia's borders now that he's got
to share. Russia's got a shared border with North Korea,
so that's fine, he can sail and fly through that.
He doesn't have a border with Vietnam, but China's in
the middle, so has got friendly relations with China. And
the other problem is he has to make sure he
goes to places to countries that are signatories for the

(01:00):
National Criminal Court because they've got the rest warrant out
for him. So it doesn't really leave in the many
options other than North Korea. So this is why Kimji
rouins in the same boat. He needs some more international
friends as well. So they're really sort of playing this
up in terms of this agreement. They signed this mutual

(01:21):
help agreement in that they would help each other out
in the cases of any aggression or incidents or wars
against them. They didn't elaborate on what they view as
an incident, and they didn't elaborate either or what the
response will be if that gets broken. But it might
have some unintended consequences. I mean, one of them is

(01:42):
seeing already is that South Korea, which so far has
refused to provide any sort of weapons to Ukraine, is
now reconsidering that in the light of this new agreement here.
So it's a very odd situation. I think the one
that's more interesting is Vietnam. Now he's got the opportunity

(02:02):
to go to Vietnam. I think Vietnam are doing him
a big favor here and that they're exercising what they
like to call bamboo diplomacy. In other words, they're foreign policies.
Like bamboo, it sways and bends in the wind, but
it never breaks. And Vietnam wants to be friends with
everyone and have enemies with no one. And it's becoming

(02:24):
an increasingly important international partner because in the last few
months Joe Biden has visited, has visited, and now vladimm
Pootin is there as well. So Vietnam is playing this
game very well and exercise with its bamboo diplomacy very
nicely at the moments.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Really interesting. The BBC today is running these photographs of
these satellite shots of North Korea appearing to build fortifications
all like a wall along its border with South Korea. Now, Peter,
that obviously, I mean, they're obviously trying to strengthen the
selves militarily and strategically. I for the longest time have

(03:03):
just written them off as a bit of a joke.
But am I making a mistake? There? Are they actually
a threat?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
In some ways? They are, you know, I mean, the
one thing that they're good at making, they don't make
very much at all, and they don't make much very well,
but they do make a lot of ammunition and that's
been shipped to rush up through their shared borders. So
there's really nothing anyone can do to stop this. Had
it been going through a third party, they would have

(03:29):
been slapped with sanctions straight away. Well, that's the worry.
I mean, there have been reports that, you know, some
of the weapons, some of the bombs have been found
in various parts of Ukraine have North Korean markings on
them and therefore were clearly made in North Korea and

(03:51):
do do damage. For what they don't have, it's the
sort of advanced technology that they would really like to launch,
sophisticated rockets to launch satellites into space. They really don't
have that, and what's Kim Jo wrong. Would like to
see if you can get some of that technology from Russia.

(04:12):
But at the moments, I mean, they're certainly irritant. They
can certainly do damage, but they must know for sure
that if they launched any sort of serious attack on
South Korea, the response for them could be fairly devastating
in terms of what South Korea could do back and
its allies with it. So there's a lot of bluster

(04:33):
involved in this, but we shouldn't just write it off.
There is always a risk that they could do some
serious damage.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Ye, Peter, Hey, thank you. I always appreciate talking to you.
Talk to you next week. That's Peter Lewis our Asia
Business Correspondent. For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive, listen
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