TRANSCRIPT:
There are a number of problems that have come to the United States as a result of the change in administrations that we’ve had for the last six months. One of the most serious facing the U.S. is the dismantling of our foreign radio broadcasts — Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe.
All of these programs are vital and essential to getting information to people who don’t have access to that information. It’s not nice that they can know what’s going on. It’s vitally important to the United States that they understand what’s going on.
The way people are motivated to act and to put pressure on their own governments is to understand what the facts are and what’s happening in the world. And that’s extremely important.
It’s very important in the case of Korea. North Koreans are denied access to information. They don’t have broadcasts that are informative and accurate. They are not allowed by law and they are imprisoned if they do listen to foreign radio broadcasts. But people are willing to take the risk and do it because they want to know what’s going on.
It’s extremely important for the United States, for the American people, and for the civility of the world to have North Koreans have access to information. It’s extremely helpful to have people who provide information about a range of opinion and thought rather than a single thought as we’re getting from Washington, unfortunately, and as has been the case in Pyongyang for far longer than that.
We need foreign radio broadcasts. We need broadcasts in Korean to the Korean people in North Korea. We can’t continue without that.
Published
King served as U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues from 2009–2017. Earlier in his career, he worked on Capitol Hill, including as staff director of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at the National Security Council, and at Radio Free Europe.