Name   Yang Hyong-sop Sex   Male Date of Birth   October 1, 1925 Place of Birth   Hamhung, South Hamkyong Province Posts Held Cadre of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party, chairman of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and the Association of (North) Korean Social Scientists, dean of Kim Il Sung Broadcast University, vice president of the Supreme People’s Assembly Claim to Fame Expert in economics and relations with South Korea Education Kim Il Sung University, Moscow State University Profile Yang Hyong-sop is a member of the government elite and credited with setting Kim Il-sung’s “juche (self-reliance) ideology in place. Having studied economics at Moscow State University, he is also a key player in inter-Korean relations as the head of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and the National Front for Democratic Reunification. Starting off as a theoretician, he was named education dean of the People’s Economics University in 1954, principal of the Korean Workers’ Party Central School in 1961 and director of the party’s Marxism-Leninism think tank in 1962. Joining the North Korean cabinet as higher education minister in 1967, he later became a cadre of the party’s Central Committee, a cadre candidate of the party’s Political Committee and a secretary of the Central Committee. In 1974, the Political Committee named him cadre. Between 1983 and 1986, he was chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly. He became a cadre candidate in the Central Committee’s political bureau in 1993 and vice chairman of the party’s Standing Committee five years later. During the 2000 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, Yang accompanied Supreme People’s Assembly President Kim Yong-nam in talks with South Korea.

List