Hong Sung-mu

Hong Sung-mu (, born 1 January 1942) is a North Korean nuclear weapons scientist and a Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) official working with North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and space programs. He is the deputy director of the party's Machine Building Industry Department (MBID) and plays a key part in the country's nuclear weapons program.

Hong rose to prominence after the 2011 death of Kim Jong Il and succession of Kim Jong Un, after which he has supervised various weapons tests, including the 2013 and January 2016 North Korean nuclear tests. Hong's involvement in weapons development has landed him on international sanctions lists.

Career Hong was born on 1 January 1942. He was educated in Central and Eastern Europe, and possibly in the Soviet Union too.

Hong was formerly the chief engineer at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center.

Hong's career took off in earnest after the 2011 death of Kim Jong Il, the country's leader, and the succession of Kim Jong Un.

Hong played a key part supervising the 2013 and January 2016 North Korean nuclear tests. He has appeared in the North Korean media in connection to those tests, the December 2012 launch of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 satellite, and the country's 2017 nuclear test.

Hong and his fellow associate in the nuclear weapons program, Ri Hong-sop, are known collectively as North Korea's "nuclear duo". The two were the first in line to receive a medal from Kim Jong Un for success in the January 2016 test. Hong's role in the nuclear program has landed him on the sanctions list of either the United Nations, United States, or South Korea. The European Union has added Hong on its "list of persons and entities responsible for the DPRK's nuclear-related, ballistic-missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes or persons or entities acting on their behalf or at their direction, or entities owned or controlled by them, subject to restrictive measures".

According to professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, Hong is "spearheading the nuclear development programme as a senior party official". North Korea expert Michael Madden calls Hong part of a last generation of "top-level officials ... who studied in the old communist world".

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