Choe Thae-bok

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	최태복
Hancha	崔泰福
Revised Romanization	Choe Tae-bok
McCune- Reischauer	Ch'oe T'aebok
See also : Korean name

Choe Thae-bok (born December 1, 1930 in Namp'o , P'yŏngan-namdo Province ) is a North Korean chemist , university professor and politician of the Labor Party of Korea (PdAK), who is currently both Secretary of the Central Committee (ZK) of the PdAK as well as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly .

Life

After attending school in Mangyŏngdae , he first completed his studies at Kim Il-sung University and then at the Faculty of Engineering at Karl Marx University in Leipzig , which he graduated in 1952. He finished another course of studies at Lomonosov University in Moscow in 1954 and then worked as a teacher before becoming an instructor in the Central Committee's Department of Education in 1959.

In 1961, Choe Thae-bok took over a professorship at the University of Chemical Engineering in Hamhŭng and in 1965 also became director of the local branch of the Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences and in 1968 dean of the University of Chemical Engineering.

After he became head of a section in the Central Committee's Department of Education in 1972, he was appointed deputy head of this department in 1976, before becoming President of the Kim-Ch'aek Technical University in 1978 .

In 1980 he was appointed Chairman of the Education Commission at the North Korean Council of Ministers and then Minister of Higher Education in 1981. At the same time he became chairman of the Korean- Bulgarian Friendship Society. In the seventh legislative period in 1982 he was elected for the first time as a deputy of the Supreme People's Assembly, to which he has been a member since then. Furthermore, at the 9th plenum of the 6th Central Committee in 1984, he was elected candidate for the Central Committee of the PdAK, before he was elected a member of the Central Committee in 1986 and has been a member of it ever since.

At the same time, Choe Thae-bok became Central Committee Secretary for Education, Science, Cultural and Technical Exchange at the 12th Plenum of the 6th Central Committee on December 27, 1986 and the 18th Plenary of the 6th Central Committee on May 23, 1990 candidate of the Politburo of the Central Committee . Furthermore, in 1992 he became head of the Central Committee's department for scientific education and in 1993 chairman of the solidarity committee with the world's population. As such, between 1993 and 1994 he also took over some of the duties of Kim Jong-sun , who was Central Committee Secretary for International Affairs at the time. At this time he was already a member of the top party leadership and in 1994 was a member of the Kim Il-sung funeral committee , where he was ranked 15th.

From the tenth legislature in September 1998 to April 2019, Choe Thae-bok was chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly. In this role, he also worked to improve the country's science and technology.

He was most recently elected a member of the Politburo at the third party conference on September 28, 2010 and has since been the Central Committee Secretary for International Affairs.

Web links

• Entry in North Korea Leadership Watch (accessed July 30, 2012)
• CV (English, accessed July 30, 2012; PDF; 17 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Report on Stepping Up the Development of Science and Technology. ( Memento from December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Official homepage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 2006, page accessed on July 30, 2012.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Choe is the family name here, Thae-bok is the first name.