Alternative History
Ban Ki-moon

10th President of Korea
May 15, 2012 - May 15, 2017

Predecessor Lee Myung-bak
Successor Ahn Cheol-soo

Minister of Foreign Affairs
May 15, 2007 - November 20, 2011

Born June 13, 1944
Spouse Yoo Soon-taek
Political Party ULDP
Profession Diplomat, Politician

Ban Ki-moon (born June 13, 1944) is a Korean politician and diplomat who served as the tenth President of Korea from 2012 to 2017. A career foreign service officer who served in a variety of non-political roles - including Deputy Foreign Minister, ambassador to the League of Nations, United States, Japan and France - Ban also served as Foreign Minister from 2007 to 2011 in Lee Myung-bak's cabinet. He emerged as a compromise candidate for the United Liberal Democratic Party of President Lee for the 2012 elections and won narrowly over center-left candidate Chung Dong-young and centrist candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, with all candidates earning between 30-35% of the vote.

Ban's term was defined by the Asian Spring crisis that began during his initial run and Korea's response, most notably militarizing the Yalu Valley and his deportation of 200,000 Chinese refugees between 2014-2017, when the policy was suspended under the new President Ahn. Like his predecessor, Ban's focus was on improving Korea's position in the world and he worked to foster considerable new ties with the United States, to the chagrin of neighbor Japan. Ban is the only Korean President to have hailed from Chungcheong Province. Unlike previous center-right Presidents, Ban left office with generally favorable approval ratings as Korea's economy boomed at levels unseen since the 1990s under his leadership, becoming the world's seventh-largest economy by 2020 after he had left office. He was not implicated in the 2016-17 ULDP bribery scandal that effectively cost the party that year's Presidential and congressional elections.