Moon Chung-in

Moon served as adviser to Kim Dae-jung, South Korea’s president from 1998 until 2003, and to Roh Moo-hyun, who held the presidency from 2003 until 2008. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, he served as Ambassador for International Security Affairs of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) and Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, a cabinet-level post.

Moon Chung-in (born March 25, 1951 in Jeju Province, South Korea) is a Special Advisor to President Moon Jae-in of South Korea for Foreign Affairs and National Security. He is also a Distinguished University Professor of Yonsei University, Krause Distinguished Fellow, School of Policy and Global Strategy, University of California, San Diego, and co-Convener of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN). He is currently serving as the editor-in-chief of Global Asia. On 21 May 2017 Dr. Moon Chung-in was nominated by President Moon Jae-in as a special advisor on unification, diplomacy and national security affairs.

Moon was one of the architects of the Sunshine Policy, and advocates, and calls for, the revival of the engagement policy, which seeks the thawing of relations with North Korea and the Government of North Korea. Moon believes that every other option including sanctions and pressures, military actions, containment, and waiting for the regime in Pyongyang to collapse has failed. Moon has blamed US administrations, particularly that of former President George W. Bush, for disrupting the effects of the Sunshine Policy, which had some initial successes before the policy was cancelled in 2008.

Moon has had a number of varied roles. He was an advisor to various agencies of the South Korean government, including the National Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Unification, and the National Intelligence Service. He served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on National Intelligence Reform and a member of the Presidential Commission on Defense Reform during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Dr. Moon was a special delegate to the first (2000) and second (2007) Korean summits, both of which were held in Pyongyang. He is currently a board member of the Pacific Century Institute, the Asia Research Fund, and the Korea Peace Forum. He was also chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Korea.

Dr. Moon majored in Chinese philosophy at Yonsei University and went to the United States in 1978 to study international relations at the University of Maryland. He received his master and doctoral degrees there, and got his first teaching job at Williams College in 1984. He moved to the University of Kentucky, Lexington in 1985 and taught there until 1994. He returned to Yonsei University, his alma mater, in 1994, and taught there until his retirement in 2016.