This piece on his early life and personality by Cheong Seong-chang, Senior Research Fellow, the Sejong Institute, South Korea.

The Sejong Institute was established as a corporate foundation with the support of national leaders in politics and business, in the aftermath of the Rangoon Incident in January 1986.

The Sejong Institute works in collaboration with international specialists and institutions holding various academic conferences and forums around the world.

The Sejong Institute carries out an annual training program called the Sejong National Strategy Training Program.

The trainees receive lectures from invited instructors as well as research fellows of the Sejong Institute.

The Sejong Institute at the Korean Cultural Centre UK is the Korean language course that offers a social education programme.

"He couldn't run the country otherwise," said Youn Jung Suk, a professor at the Sejong Institute specializing in Japan-Korea relations.

In 2004 he was named the head of the Sejong Institute.

"The South Korean position is showing more flexibility than in the past," said Lee Jong Suk, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, a private research organization in Seoul.

Paik is currently the director of Inter-Korean Relations Studies Program and the director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute in Korea.