Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung (Korean: 김대중; Hanja: 金大中, pronounced [kim.dɛ.dʑuŋ]; 6 January 1924 – 18 August 2009) was a South Korean politician, activist and statesman who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003.

Kim entered politics as 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 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 DJP. 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.

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. He was a 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea and Japan in December 2000. He was the first South Korean to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the second being awarded to Han Kang in 2024 for Literature. He was sometimes referred to as "the Nelson Mandela of Asia". After completing his term in 2003, he died at the age of 85 on 18 August 2009, due to multiple organ failure and respiratory distress syndrome caused by pneumonia.