Former diplomat and national security advisor of South Korea to join the Korea Program as Koret Fellow

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Kyou Hyun Kim will join the Korea Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as the program’s 2017-18 Koret Fellow.

A career diplomat by training, Kim most recently served as senior secretary to the president for foreign affairs and national security in South Korea from October 2015 to May 2017 during which he played a key role in enacting the North Korea human rights law. He led the South Korean negotiation team for inter-Korean dialogue that led to the reunion of separated families in 2014.

"Kyou Hyun Kim brings wealth of knowledge in the Korean affairs to Shorenstein APARC. He has decades of experience in diplomacy and national security, and it is very timely that he joins the Korea Program as this year’s Koret Fellow,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC.

Kim’s extensive diplomatic career includes serving as first vice foreign minister (2013-14), deputy foreign minister for political affairs (2012-13), ambassador for performance evaluation, and special advisor to the minister of foreign affairs (2010-12). He also served at the South Korean embassy in the United States as minister for political affairs. His 37 years of public service was mostly dealing with South Korea’s foreign and security policies and North Korean affairs.

During his fellowship, Kim will review South Korea’s past administrations’ policies toward North Korea and aim to focus on a path leading to unification of two Koreas for permanent peace and stability in and around the Korean Peninsula.  He will also attempt to map out ways to narrow the physical, economic, societal and identity gaps between South and North Korea in order to help the South Korean public to tolerate and accept North Koreans as equal citizens in a unified Korea. His two main research questions will be (1) how to build the internal capability for socioeconomic transformation in North Korea, and (2) how to build domestic support for reunification in South Korea.

Kim received a Doctor of Dental Surgery from the School of Dentistry at Seoul National University, and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University.

Supported by the Koret Foundation, the fellowship brings leading professionals to Stanford to conduct research on contemporary Korean affairs with the broad aim of strengthening ties between the United States and Korea.