I believe we need to move forward in a time-sensitive way with the situation on Okinawa and Guam.

So we have official diplomatic relations with the Qaddafi regime?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's difficult to say how quickly they will move forward with the succession process, but I think our advice to Pyongyang would be that, if they want the succession process to move forward smoothly, they should focus on responsible…

Well, at a time when we have had these sanctions in place, Beijing has made well more than $5 billion in direct investment without asking for any sort of political change inside the country.

You would agree, would you not, that sanctions from the outside affect the ability of a country to evolve economically and in other ways?

I would strongly agree with your summation on that.

A key part of your role as defined by the JADE Act is to consult with regional partners and others to coordinate policy.

We have urged Burma's senior leadership to abide by its own commitment to fully comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874.

We haven't had an ambassador to Burma since 1990, how do you feel about this in terms of affecting your ability to engage the Government and the diplomatic representatives of other countries in Burma?

All parties have good reasons to make concessions. None of them can afford to watch Burma descend further into isolation and desperation and wait to act until another generation of its people is lost.

I think they realize, as we have, as I said in my statement, that pure engagement, pure pressure is not necessarily getting the results we want.

I think, frankly, where Burma is today--I mean, ASEAN recognizes that Burma is an outlier, that Burma is somewhat of an embarrassment to the organization.

This is an absolutely critical issue. This is a core concern of ours.

These five countries present an opportunity, an almost unique opportunity, in terms of the ability for the United States to make a big difference in support for democratic reform.

What type of model do you see for Burma's political and economic transition?

This past year and a half, from my perspective here in the Senate, has resulted in the potential for much stronger relations between South Korea and Japan.

Well, wouldn't you agree that one of the reasons that Burma hasn't made that choice is that they've had sanctions on them, and once sanctions were lifted--for instance, in Vietnam, once the trade embargo was lifted in 1994, it enabled a…