April 27, 2024
Interviews

Interview: How a North Korean defector’s daring escape led him to ROK politics

Park Choong-kwon went from studying missiles in DPRK to working at Hyundai Steel and advising the South’s ruling party

When Park Choong-kwon made the decision to flee North Korea, he had no idea where his risky attempt to escape would lead, only that he could not stay in the country he had always called home.

Fifteen years later, he has a Ph.D. in materials engineering from South Korea’s top university and a job as a senior researcher at Hyundai Steel, specializing in automotive components.

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