Jonathan Cheng

the track record of these three countries, I think Kim Jong Un would look at it and say, we made the right choice.

Certainly did.

The first takeaway is that North Korea is at heart a religious society.

It is a nation state with all the trappings of a nation state, but we need to understand that it is a religious society built around worship

of Kim Il-sung, the state founder, and his successors, including the current leader Kim Jong-un.

I think it helped explain why there is so much devotion, so much willingness to endure hardship, and why all attempts to steer North Korea onto a different course have not succeeded over the decades.

The second takeaway I would say is that North Korea in its current form is not going away anytime soon.

The third takeaway is that Kim Il-sung understood it's more powerful, perhaps, to recognize the importance of religion, of faith, of belief.

Because only faith, unlike fame, power, sex, money, uniquely speaks to a question that I think every person has at some point, which is a simple question.

What happens after we die?

Faith purports to answer that.

And if you can get people to believe in your faith, in your cosmology, in the doctrines and the rituals that you've created, I think you can make people do almost anything.

And Kim Il-sung understood that deeply.

Thanks.

It's really great to be here, Linh.

And I hope you learned something.

Obviously, what it means is that they're selling goods.

far more to the world than they are buying from the world to the tune of a trillion dollars this year.

This is obviously not something that is necessarily looked upon as a good thing in other countries, particularly in the White House, where President Trump has long had a problem with deficits, especially with China.

But, you know, this is not just the U.S.-China thing.