Accounts of Kim 's early life vary . According to Fyodor Tertitskiy of NK News , he was born Kim Myong-sam to a Korean-Chinese family in the village of Dapu Shihe in Manchuria , in what is now the Liaoning province of China , in 1928 . He came to North Korea with the Chinese People 's Volunteer Army during the Korean War and chose to stay . Shortly before the end of the war in 1953 , he went to the USSR to study . His experience with the USSR and China propelled his career in foreign affairs . In 1956 , he became a section chief at the Foreign Department of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea and was a vice-minister for foreign affairs by 1962 . According to his official biography , Kim was born in Pyongyang , Korea . After graduating from university , he worked as a teacher at the Central Party School , vice-department director of the WPK Central Committee , vice-minister of foreign affairs , and first vice-department director , department director and secretary of the WPK Central Committee , vice-premier of the administration council and concurrently Minister of Foreign Affairs . His elevation to Minister of Foreign Affairs is believed to have occurred as part of a reorganization of the diplomatic bureaucracy after the Rangoon bombing in 1983
Rangoon bombing
Rangoon bombing
Kim Yong-nam