North Korea: High-level defector believes THIS is the answer to solving crisis…

The high-level defector, who left the communist regime last year, told Congress in Washington that disseminating more information in the highly reclusive country would ultimately be more effective that spending billions of dollars on military capabilities.

Thae Yong-ho, chief of mission at Pyongyang’s embassy in Britain until he defected in 2016, said: “We can educate the North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information.”

Asked what kind of information he was discussing, Thae said background about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, like his birth date, to convey the idea that he and his family ‘are not gods.”

He said South Korean videos, for example, were increasingly available within the North.

Mr Thae said: “The US is spending billions of dollars to cope with the military threat and yet how much does the US spend each year on information activities involving North Korea in a year? Unfortunately, it may be a tiny fraction.”

Mr Thae made his first visit to Washington during rising international tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missiles program. The crisis is expected to dominate US President Donald Trump‘s trip to the region which begins this weekend and includes a stop in South Korea.

Mr Thae also told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that US officials should meet with Kim at least once to try to understand his thinking and convince him that he is risking mass destruction.

Mr Thae said Kim thinks he can force the United States to accept North Korea as a nuclear power and drive US forces off the Korean peninsula.

It was reported on Tuesday that Washington was quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, despite Trump’s public assertion that such talks are a waste of time.

Amid a war of words between Kim, who has called Trump a “mentally deranged dotard,” and Mr Trump, who referred to Kim as “little rocket man,” many US politicians have been pushing for non-military solutions to the crisis.

Representative Ed Royce, the committee’s Republican chairman, called at the hearing for a “dramatic increase” in the number of individuals and entities targeted for sanctions, without delay.

Mr Thae is the highest-level defector from North Korea in two decades.

In his testimony he described a life before he left for South Korea that mixed relative privilege and oppression.

He said he defected because he could not let his sons lead “a life, like me, as a modern-day slave.”

Mr Thae’s comments come two days before President Donald Trump is due to make his first visit to Asia since he was elected last year.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump is expected to put more pressure on Chinese premier Xi Jinping in talks next week to take tougher measures against North Korea.

Senior administration officials say Mr Trump will try to convince Xi when they meet in Beijing to squeeze North Korea with steps such as limits on oil exports, coal imports and financial transactions.

It is the latest attempt by Mr Trump to have China, North Korea’s only major ally, rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons ambitions but it is far from clear if Xi, who has just consolidated his power at a Communist Party congress, will agree.

China says its leverage over Pyongyang is exaggerated, and points to its support in the UN Security Council for recent sanctions on North Korea as evidence that it is trying to curtail the isolated nation’s nuclear and missile tests.