Ambassador Chun Yungwoo of South Korea will Give a Lecture at VMI
Ambassador Chun Yungwoo (千英宇 천영우), of South Korea, will give a lecture sponsored by Washington and Lee University on March 25 at 8 p.m. in JM Hall (the chapel) at Virginia Military Institute. The talk is free and open to the public.
Chun will talk on Korean and NEAsia security issues, and he will touch more broadly upon non-proliferation issues. NEAsia focuses on transnational issues involving the peoples of northeast China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and eastern Russia. Its goals are to aid communication and collaboration regarding research across this area.
Chun currently heads the Korean Peninsula Future Forum, a think tank focusing on strategies for positive changes in North Korea, where he works on an array of issues including nuclear non-proliferation and Korean reunification. He is also the senior advisor to The Asan Institute of Policy Studies, a think tank in Seoul, and a columnist for DongA Ilbo, the leading newspaper in Korea since 1920.
Chun has served the Republic of Korea in many diplomatic functions during his 33-year career. The focus has been on issues of international cooperation, including two postings to the United Nations, service as deputy minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations and two years as ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Alongside these broadly oriented positions, much of his career has focused on North Korea. An early posting to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna led to work on the multilateral effort to mothball North Korea’s light water reactor.
Chun later served as the head of the South Korean delegation for the Six Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear program as chief negotiator for South Korea from 2006- 08, as vice foreign minister (2009-2010) and as the national security advisor to President Lee Myung-Bak from 2010 until Chun’s retirement in February 2013.
He graduated from Pusan National University with a B.A. in French and holds a master’s of international affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
