Dr. Chang-Seok Yang is former auditor for the Kaesong Industrial District Foundation and deputy minister for South-North Dialogue at the Ministry of Unification. Previously, Dr. Yang served as the Ministry’s deputy minister for planning and coordination, special representative for Inter-Korean Dialogue, director-general of the Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis, director-general of the Bureau of Social and Cultural Exchanges, and Spokesperson. Earlier, he served as the Unification Ministry’s deputy director-general of the Information Analysis Bureau and director of the International Cooperation Division. Dr. Yang served as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) deputy director for Policy and DPRK Affairs, director for Policy Coordination in the Office of Planning for the Light Water Reactor Project, and first secretary (Unification Affairs) at the Korean Embassy in Washington, DC.

Prior, he was assistant to the Unification Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and director of the Unification Planning Policy Division of the Unification Ministry. He was head of the ROK delegation on a cooperative research project in Bonn, unification attaché at the Korean Embassy in Germany, and deputy spokesman for the Unification Ministry. In the 1980s, he served as deputy director in various Unification Ministry divisions. Dr. Yang has visited North Korea more than fifty times, including for KEDO-DPRK negotiations, and is author of Brandenburg Memoirs: Testimony by Key Players for German Unification (Neulpum Plus, 2011). Dr. Yang holds a B.A. in Economics from Gyungbook National University, an M.A. in Russian Politics from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Dankook University.