Choi Jung Hwa

Choi Jung Hwa was promoted to 9th Degree Black Belt in 2004 and to the rank of Grandmaster. Choi prefers the title of President or Master to Grandmaster.

Under his leadership, the ITF historically returned to South Korea for its 2004 ITF World Championships. ITF has now commenced re-establishing itself in South Korea, Choi Jung Hwa's country of birth. "As an organization, we must become sensitive to the changes around us and be able to cope, without compromising the principles – that is, to maintain this purity of technique and philosophy that General Choi handed down to us…..Don't forget the standards include moral as well as technical."

Choi held the post of Secretary General and Vice Secretary of the ITF for several years until elected as Choi Hong Hi's successor to the Presidency by the ITF members in 2001. He allegedly offered that General Choi should remain ITF President for the first 2 years of that term as to give him the opportunity to "retire with dignity" in 2003. General Choi Hong Hi died less than 12 months later.

He has been a regular visitor to Australia since the mid-1990s.

In 1971 Choi Jung Hwa emigrated to Canada. In 1983 Choi was convicted in Canada on charges that he conspired to assassinate the President of South Korea Chun Doo-Hwan. He was sentenced in Canada, and was barred from South Korea (this has since been rescinded). He was convicted in absentia, and travelled as a Taekwon-Do instructor in the then "Eastern Bloc" nations; mainly Yugoslavia and in the DPRK as well. It wasn't until several years later that he returned to Canada to finish his prison term.

Choi Jung Hwa (born 20 May 1954) is the only son of General Choi Hong Hi, who is regarded as the founder of Taekwondo.