Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung (Korean: 김대중; 6 January 1924 – 18 August 2009) was a South Korean politician, statesman and activist who served as the eighth President of South Korea from 1998 to 2003.

Born in Hauido during Japanese colonial rule, Kim graduated from Mokpo Commercial School and later worked at a Japanese shipping company in Mokpo and later established his own shipping business after World War II. Originally an entrepreneur, Kim abandoned business and entered politics after the Korean War, becoming a member of the new wing of the Democratic Party.

He was an opposition politician who carried out a democratization movement against the military dictatorship from the Third Republic in the 1960s to the Fifth Republic in the 1980s. He escaped death five times, spent six years in prison and ten years under house arrest and in exile. He was repeatedly imprisoned, exiled, almost killed by vehicular homicide, and sentenced to death by the military and political authorities.

He ran unsuccessfully in presidential elections in 1971, 1987, and 1992. In the country's 15th presidential election in 1997, he defeated Grand National Party candidate Lee Hoi-chang through an alliance with Kim Jong-pil and the Democratic Liberal Party. Kim was the first opposition candidate to win the presidency. At the time of his inauguration in 1998, he was 74 years old, making him the oldest president in Korean history.

During his tenure, Kim Dae-jung worked to revive the South Korean economy, which had been hit by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and reformed the South Korean economic system, enabling South Korea to successfully complete the privatization of enterprises and the transformation of its industrial structure. He promoted the Sunshine Policy, a policy of détente toward North Korea, and held the first-ever inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in June 2000. In addition, he effectively maintained peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula by coordinating the development of relations with the United States, Japan, China and Russia, and enhanced South Korea's international status and prestige.