Choi Kyungwon
Choi Kyungwon is a professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies of Tokoha University in Japan. His areas of specialty are East Asian international relations, Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) relations, and ROK politics and diplomacy.
Choi earned his undergraduate degree from the Department of North Korean Studies of Dongguk University in the ROK and his master’s degree in North Korean security policy from that department’s graduate school. He went on to earn a doctorate in Japan-ROK security relations in Japan from Keio University’s Graduate School of Law. Subsequently, he was a research fellow at the Keio Institute of East Asian Studies, and became an associate professor at the Center for Asia-Pacific Future Studies and at the Research Center for Korean Studies at Kyushu University, before joining the Tokoha faculty in 2020.
Choi’s key publications include Reisen-ki Nikkan anzen hosho kankei no keisei [The formation of Japan-ROK security relations in the Cold War period] (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2014), which received an Association for Contemporary Korean Studies in Japan award; Nikkan ga kyoyu suru kinmirai e [Toward a near future shared by Japan and the ROK] (Tokyo: Honnoizumi-sha, 2015), on which Choi was a coeditor; “Window of Opportunity for a New Détente: ‘Tight Link Strategy’ of Moon Jae-in Administration and ROK-DPRK-US Triangle,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, Vol. 9, 2020; “Nikkan kankei no hen’yo: Rekishi mondai to keizai anzen hosho no ishu- linke-ji” [Transformation of Japan-ROK relations: Linkage of the history issue and economic and security issues], Gendai Kankoku Chosen kenkyu [The journal of contemporary Korean studies], Vol. 19, 2019; “Japan’s Foreign Policy toward the Korean Peninsula in the Détente Era: An Attempt at Multilayered Policy,” The North Korea International Documentation Project Working Paper Series, Wilson Center, 2017; and “Nikkan anzen hosho kankei no keisei: Bundan taiseika no ‘anpo kiki’ e no taio, 1968” [Japan and Korea seek national security cooperation: The “security crisis” of 1968 under the divided system], Kokusai seiji [International politics], No. 170, 2012, which garnered a Japan Association of International Relations Incentive Award.