▲ Unification Minister nominee Kim Yung-ho speaks to reporters at the presidential office on June 29, 2023. (Yonhap)

(profile) unification minister nominee

(profile) Conservative professor tapped to lead unification ministry

SEOUL, June 29 (Yonhap) -- Kim Yung-ho, the nominee for South Korea's new unification minister, is a conservative professor known for his hard-line stance toward North Korea and also a vocal advocate of human rights.

Born in the southeastern city of Jinju, the 63-year-old majored in diplomacy at Seoul National University and earned a doctorate degree from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. His doctorate thesis explored the 1950-53 Korean War.

Until the late 1980s, Kim, a former student activist, was considered a leftist academic who published translated works of Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci and communism theory books from the Soviet Union.

In the wake of the democratic uprising in 1987, he served 10 months in prison on charges of publishing "unlawful" books and breaching the National Security Act.

Upon returning home, Kim worked as a researcher at Sejong Institute and started teaching political science and diplomacy at Sungshin Women's University in Seoul in 1999.

It was through his studies abroad and research on the Korean War that Kim's political inclination underwent a radical transition to the right.

In 2005, he became one of the most vocal scholars affiliated with the conservative New Right movement in South Korea and took on advisory positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as veterans and unification ministries.

In 2011, he was appointed as the presidential secretary of unification affairs during then conservative President Lee Myung-bak's term, and served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' human rights ambassador from 2012-2013.

Kim, who launched a YouTube channel in 2018, has shared conservative views on global politics and North Korea and has written op-eds denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his regime, earning a hawkish reputation.

At the same time, he is considered the right person to understand and carry out President Yoon Suk Yeol's policy stance against the North that centers on the "audacious initiative," aimed at supporting Pyongyang's economic development in return for its commitment to denuclearization.

Kim has been also serving as the chief of an advisory committee designed to lay out a new vision on unification under the Yoon administration.

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