My C.V. can be downloaded from here. My official bio can be found here.

Welcome!

My name is Sungmin Cho, and I am a professor of the the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI APCSS), an academic institute of the U.S. Department of Defense, based in Honolulu, Hawaii. I joined the APCSS in August 2018. My area of research interests covers China-Korean Peninsula relations, North Korea’s nuclear program, Korean unification, and the US alliance in East Asia. I also closely follows the domestic politics of China and North Korea.

Prior to arriving at APCSS, I was a lecturer for the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University from 2016 to 2018, where I taught the domestic politics of China and the politics of nuclear weapons in East Asia for both undergraduate and graduate students. I have published or forthcoming articles on the politics and security affairs of Northeast Asia in peer-reviewed journals, including World Politics, Journal of Contemporary China, The China Journal, Asian Security, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, and Korea Observer. My commentaries also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, War on the Rocks,  The Diplomat, and Defense One, among others.

For the doctoral dissertation research, I conducted two rounds of fieldwork in China in 2015-2016, supported by Georgetown University’s summer research funds and the Smith Richardson Foundation. I did archival works in Beijing and interviewed former Chinese officials to explore China’s strategic openness to the Western democracy promotion programs. Previously between 2008-2010, I did fieldwork in the Chaoxian Autonomous Region in Northeastern China for my master’s thesis on China-North Korea relationship.

Before starting graduate studies, I served in the Republic of Korea Army for three years, which I completed at the rank of first lieutenant. As an interpretation officer of the Capital Corps of the ROK Army, I participated in the US-ROK joint exercises to defend the Seoul Metropolitan Area in 2005. I was later deployed to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan as part of the Multinational Forces-Iraq in 2006. Returning from Iraq, I worked in the Korean Army Logistics Command in 2007-2008, managing the military sales from the United States to South Korea.

I was a proud member of Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program in 2009-2010. I worked at Pacific Forum for one year as a residential fellow under the James A. Kelly Korean Studies Program in 2011.

I received my PhD in Government from Georgetown University, Master’s degree in International Relations from Peking University, and B.A. in Political Science from Korea University. I also spent a year as a visiting student at the University of British Columbia.

I am an avid fan of movies and books. I traveled by bicycle from Beijing to Nanjing in China in the winter of 2009, and along the border between China and North Korea in the summer of 2010. A native Korean, I speak Korean, English and Mandarin Chinese.