This hearing will address the two most important questions for international security and for United States interests in the world for the foreseeable future.

Those questions are the role of China in the world, and how to stop and roll back the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In light of recent claims by the North Korean government that it had resumed its nuclear weapons program in the mid nineties based on a covert uranium enrichment program, and that is has now begun reprocessing plutonium fuel rods for weapons production, US policy makers are confronted with very serious and immediate choices.

If North Korea is allowed to maintain its nuclear weapons programs, other nations may well follow suit and some may buy such weapons from the North Koreans.

Resolution of this crisis on the Korean Peninsula certainly requires that China play a leading role in defusing the stand off on the Korean peninsula. What that role is and what it should be is the substance of this hearing.

We have a very full day of expert testimony and are grateful to all of the panelists for agreeing to participate.