[World news] Korean-American Diplomats

Korean-American diplomats of the U.S. government are active in foreign affairs on the Korean peninsula.

It was reported June 28 that Sung Kim (Korean name, Kim Sung-Yong) at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul became the first Korean-American to be appointed director of the Office of Korean Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and Balbina Hwang, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, was named as a special aide to Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

The two refused to have official interview in a telephone call with this paper.

Kim said “I have not been told clearly about that,” whereas Hwang on her vacation mentioned in a telephone call the same day “it is difficult to have a public interview now because the identification process is underway and that would take more than 2 months.”

Kim, who has been working in Seoul since 2002, had worked as a prosecutor at the Los Angeles State prosecutors’ office until he entered the state department in 1989. He went to University of Pennsylvania, the London School of Economics (LSE), and Loyola University School of Law.

Although appointed originally to the Office of Korean Affairs in the State Department as a vice director this April, he was instead promoted to the director, as Gerald Anderson, Director of the Office of Peacekeeping, Sanctions & Counter-terrorism (IO/PSC) in the State Department, was moved to another department as assistant secretary.

Hwang, who is known for a hawkish stance on issues concerning Korean peninsula, acquired her doctoral degree from Georgetown University. She was taught there by Victor Cha, who serves as a Director for Asian Affairs at National Security Council.

In addition, another Korean-American official in the U.S. government is Kim Yu-ri, a first secretary at U.S. Embassy Seoul, who has been appointed to the Office of North Korean affairs. She is to return to the State Department this summer.

She graduated from University of Pennsylvania and Cambridge University to become a diplomat in 1996 and has experience at embassies in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo. From 2002 to 2003, she aided then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.

As many as 15 Korean-American diplomats including Joseph Yoon, a councilor in his second tenure in Seoul since 1997, are working for the U.S. embassy Seoul. Diplomatic sources in Seoul say “considering 70~80 diplomats in the U.S. embassy in Seoul, the proportion of Korean officials is considerably high.”

Besides, there are some more Korean-American diplomats. U.S. embassy Seoul spokesman Robert Ogburn came back to Korea after he was adopted by an American family when he was young, and Julie Chong, the vice information director at the U.S. embassy in Vietnam, served as an aide to James Kelly, then assistant secretary of state in October 2002, when Mr. Kelly met North Korean delegate Kang Suk Joo for negotiations in Pyongyang.

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com