U.S.-Korean professor Kim Chin-Kyung at Chinese campus

Yanji city, China, 11-2003..U.S.-Korean professor Kim Chin-Kyung talks to students at the university he founded in China on the sensitive North Korean border...Kim studied theology in Bristol, England, and later went to graduate school in Florida, where he became an American citizen. He got rich running a fashion chain, but sold his house with its swimming pool and came to China in 1987. ..He founded the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in 1992 and has built it into one of China's top institutes, attracting the brightest ethnic Korean students. The first private university in China, it has 2,000 students and a faculty of 160 from 13 countries. ..For authorities across the border in North Korea, Dr Kim?s C.V. must read like the model enemy?s: a South-Korean with a U.S. passport, a strong Christian faith, a spell fighting the Communists in the Korean War? The list goes on...Yet, Pyongyang has given the 67-year-old economics professor one million square meters of land to build the country?s first foreign-staffed university for about 2,500 students, modeling on this China venture...Construction is on it way on the projected USD100-million venture, funded largely by overseas Koreans. Kim will wield full power in choosing staff, which he said will come from all parts of the globe and include many Christians...North Korea needs Kim desperately. One-third of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology will be devoted to teaching MBA, commerce and accounting, skills that the country lacks in the global market. Religion is off the curriculum, of course ? spreading faith is a capital crime in the atheist state..

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Copyright: Copyright 2003 by Justin Jin. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 1431x1410 / 749.0KB; www.justinjin.com; china rustbelt northeastern northeast North Korea Korea Kim Chin-Kyung professor university yanbian science and technology students Yanji city China
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Yanji city, China, 11-2003..U.S.-Korean professor Kim Chin-Kyung talks to students at the university he founded in China on the sensitive North Korean border...Kim studied theology in Bristol, England, and later went to graduate school in Florida, where he became an American citizen. He got rich running a fashion chain, but sold his house with its swimming pool and came to China in 1987. ..He founded the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in 1992 and has built it into one of China's top institutes, attracting the brightest ethnic Korean students. The first private university in China, it has 2,000 students and a faculty of 160 from 13 countries. ..For authorities across the border in North Korea, Dr Kim?s C.V. must read like the model enemy?s: a South-Korean with a U.S. passport, a strong Christian faith, a spell fighting the Communists in the Korean War? The list goes on...Yet, Pyongyang has given the 67-year-old economics professor one million square meters of land to build the country?s first foreign-staffed university for about 2,500 students, modeling on this China venture...Construction is on it way on the projected USD100-million venture, funded largely by overseas Koreans. Kim will wield full power in choosing staff, which he said will come from all parts of the globe and include many Christians...North Korea needs Kim desperately. One-third of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology will be devoted to teaching MBA, commerce and accounting, skills that the country lacks in the global market. Religion is off the curriculum, of course ? spreading faith is a capital crime in the atheist state..