Choi Ha-guk
Choi Ha-guk is a character that appears in the novel, Point of Contact. He is the current Supreme Leader of North Korea.
Biography
Hailing from North Korea's dominant Choi family, Choi Ha-guk was a high ranking officer in the Korean People's Army. Having trained with some of China's top military units, Ha-guk had deep personal and political ties with key members of the Chinese Politburo and PLA staff officers. Following the death of his uncle, Ha-guk's father, Choi Sang-u, was imprisoned by Choi Ji-hoon at a labor camp in order to become the new Supreme Leader of North Korea. In 2010, Ji-hoon's failure to develop North Korea's nuclear weapons program and assassinate U.S. President Jack Ryan led Hwang Min-ho to lead a coup against the Supreme Leader. Ha-guk participated in the coup by leading the army unit that had killed Ji-hoon and his bodyguard. Afterwards, Ha-guk's father was freed from the labor camp and installed as the new Supreme Leader. Unfortunately, years of hard labor had taken its toll on Sang-u's heath and he died a few weeks later. With his father's blessing and the army behind him, Ha-guk was unanimously elected as the Supreme Leader.
Ha-guk's first order of business was to repair North Korea's relationship with China which had been grossly undermined by Ji-hoon. Ha-guk accomplished this by using his previous connections with the Chinese Politburo. Ha-guk then sought to elevate North Korea to the world stage. He ordered the creation of a computer virus that would crash the Asian stock market by driving down the stock of Dalfan Technologies. To do this, General Administrative Services Directorate Deputy Ri Kwan Ju enlisted the help of former Bulgarian intelligence officer Tervel Zvezdev. Zvezdev then blackmailed former U.S. Senator Weston Rhodes into asking Paul Brown of Hendley Associates to install the virus on Dalfan's computer network, claiming that the software would help find out whether China had inserted malware into the system.
Rhodes' plans are soon compromised after Brown discovered the virus while examining the software's lines of code. Zvezdev later captured Brown and forced him to install the virus. Despite this, Jack Ryan, Jr. rescue Brown and made their way to Malaysia to warn authorities about the virus. General Ri sent assassins to kill Ryan and Brown but they manage to fend off their attackers. While Brown was mortally wounded by Ri's men, Ryan successfully warned of the virus which prevented it from affecting the world markets. As a result, Ha-guk had Zvezdev killed for his failure and had his remains stuffed in a kimchi jar.
Trivia
- He is fluent in Mandarin.
Template:Characters/Point of Contact