Professor Jong Kun Choi is currently a Professor of International Relations and International Security at Yonsei University, one of the top three universities in South Korea and a priority partner to the University of Bath.

Professor Choi served as the first civilian 1st Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs (2020-22) and Secretary For Peace Planning/Peace and Arms Control (2017-22) in President Moon Jae-In's administration, during which he led South Korea’s negotiation team to conclude the Comprehensive Military Agreement with North Korea. A fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar, Prof Choi is a highly published academic with articles in the Washington Quarterly, Review of International Studies, International Security, Global Asia, International Politics, and International Relations of the Asia Pacific, among others.

Professor Choi will be hosted by Professor Timo Kivimaki in the Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies. Regarding Prof. Choi's appointment as a Bath Global Chair, Prof. Kivimaki said:

We are excited to host Professor Jong Kun Choi again at the university, this time as a Global Chair. Professor Choi is an exceptional intellectual with practical and academic achievements of the highest level. In addition to being a world-renowned academic expert of global and Northeast Asian regional security affairs and a full professor at one of world’s leading universities in his field of expertise, Prof. Choi excelled as the Presidential Secretary for Peace and Arms Control in President Moon Jae-in’s administration, and was the first deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea until the end of President Moon’s term. During his time in the South Korean government, prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula progressed spectacularly. A significant part of this progress can be attributed to the work done by Prof. Choi, including an important contribution to the negotiation of the Military Agreement for the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration between North and South Korea, of October 2018. We are honoured and thrilled to welcome Professor Choi back to Bath, not only as a Global Chair, but also as a dear friend to many of our academics at the University of Bath.

Activities at Bath

Prof. Jongkun Choi was appointed as a Global Chair in 2023/24.

During his term as Global Chair, Prof. Choi undertook numerous activities that continue to deliver many positive outcomes for the University of Bath, including:

• Cooperation with University of Bath researchers and students involved in conflict studies that has resulted in a research project idea on misplaced and pariah countries, which a research team under Dr. Wali Aslam’s leadership plan to develop into an externally funded project.
  
• Led research seminars with both undergraduate and postgraduate students and that invigorated two PhD projects and several UG dissertation projects.
  
• Prof. Choi held meetings in London with UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials and unofficial peacemakers to discuss UK-South Korea relations. Furthermore, these meetings also created contacts that assisted with establishing cooperation between UK’s leading peace negotiator, Mr. Jonathan Powell, and University of Bath researchers and students, including helping a PhD student with a project in Afghanistan and securing Mr. Powell as the keynote speaker at a conference co-organised by a Bath academic.
• Prof. Choi was invited to present a number of lectures at Cambridge University, which contributed to the UK efforts in support of peace in the Korean Peninsula.
  
• Prof. Choi acted as the presenter of the Research Handbook on Conflict Prevention, edited by Prof. Timo Kivimäki (Dept. of Politics, Languages and International Studies). This, in addition to a credit as Global Chair in the Global Asia journal (December 2024 issue), added to the publicity of the publication and the wider university.
• During his visits, Prof. Choi Prof. Choi’s continued to write the memoir of South Korea’s former president, Moon Jae-in, that was published in April 2024.
  
• Prof. Choi held a public lecture in January 2024, titled 'Power of Peace on the Korean Peninsula: Lessons from the Moon Jae-in Administration'.