Kang Song-san

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	강성산
Hancha	姜 成 山
Revised Romanization	Gang Seong-san
McCune- Reischauer	Kang Sŏngsan
See also : Korean name

Kang Song-san (born March 3, 1931 in the province of Kankyō-hokudo , former Japanese Empire , today's North Korea , † 2007 ) was a North Korean politician.

Kang Song-san was named Chagang-do Province's First Party Secretary in the 1960s . Since the 1970s at the latest, he has been a leading member of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Korea . Around 1970 he became a candidate for the Politburo and was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1977 to 1984 . Around 1980 he became a full member of the Politburo and was chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1984 to 1986.

In 1992, Kang was reappointed head of government. He was seen as a proponent of a cautious opening of North Korea to the outside world and the driving force behind the talks with South Korea that began in the early 1990s . In the last two years of his tenure, he struggled with health problems. In 1997 he resigned as Prime Minister because of this.

Kang was considered one of the most influential functionaries in North Korea. Since the flight of Hwang Jang-yop , the former chief ideologist of North Korea, to whose supporters Kang was one, observers see Kang's influence clearly weakened.

literature

• Tai Sung An: North Korea. A political handbook. Wilmington (Delaware): Scholarly Resources Inc. 1983. ISBN 0-8420-2205-8 .

Web links

• History of Kang Song-san . South Korean Ministry of Unification Information Center on North Korea (Korean)

Remarks

1. ↑ Various sources also name 1926 as the year of birth and Pyongyang as the place of birth. See 강성산. In: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture. Retrieved August 26, 2016 (Korean). 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Kang is the family name here, Song-san is the first name.