Ambassador Hill: NKorea Has 'Zero Interest in Negotiation'

North Korea, by shooting a missile over Japan earlier this week, showed again that it has "zero interest in negotiation," and it's time for China to quit lecturing the United States about the need to calm down, former Ambassador Christopher Hill said Thursday.

"This idea of taking a missile and flying it right over Japan, panicking people, and really causing the prospect of missile debris, all kinds of potentials, is pretty in your face, so to speak," Hill, the former ambassador to South Korea and assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "I think what they're really trying to do is to say that they can really hold these populations hostage, and there's little the U.S. can do about it."

China, though, needs to do something about North Korea's threats, as "no country can put up with a missile directed right at its face," Hill said.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted that "talking is not the answer to North Korea."

"Morning Joe" show host Joe Scarborough, who is a frequent critic of Trump's,  said he agreed with Trump's statement and that the United States has been talking to North Korea and paying it extortion money for 25 years.

"We've basically been paying them off and talking has not worked," Scarborough said. "Expecting China to be a rational actor here has not worked either. They've been reckless and irresponsible."

Hill said he agrees, but he also thinks at the end of the day, there will be a diplomatic process, and it's important to keep the door open for that.

He acknowledged that there is little reason to trust North Korea, so an agreement with the country will have to instead depend on verification.

"When we didn't get adequate verifications year ago, that's when we pulled out of the talks," Hill said. "The South Korean people want to see a diplomatic track and see our doors open to that. That's important."

However, he said North Korea doesn't appear to be interested in negotiating and the United States "shouldn't be pushing something that the other side."

Hill said he believes the United States should continue to lean on the Chinese, as "they don't want nuclear weapons in North Korea any more than we do."

China, though, is most likely intrigued by the idea that North Korea has a strategy to force the United States away from the Korean Peninsula.

"We need to be smart," Hill said. "That said, I don't think tweeting in the dead of the night is the way to get these people's attention."

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