After mentioning the daughter of the DPRK leader at a military parade and other events marking the 75th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on February 8, 2023, the author was asked to explain whether the reasoning of some experts that the girl had already been appointed Kim Jong-un’s successor was correct.
Recall that on February 8, before the start of the parade, Kim Jong-un and his daughter walked side by side: the father held his daughter’s hand, while the girl’s mother kept a few steps behind. On the podium, the daughter publicly stroked the head of state on the cheek and spoke to him in whispers. The “first daughter” was dressed maturely with strict makeup in all of the photos, and she was frequently in the center of the composition. The media referred to her as a “beloved” and “respected” child, with the latter term previously applied to Kim Jong-un, who received this “title-appeal” a few days after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in 2011.
It was later revealed that the DPRK had issued a series of postage stamps depicting the head of state’s daughter. Four of the five stamps depict her with her father in front of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which they watched launch together on November 18, 2022. Understandably, the stamps were not about the daughter but about the rocket launch, however the girl on the stamps raised the temperature of the discussion considerably.
On February 18, as part of his late father’s birthday celebration, Kim Jong-un attended a soccer game – and again with his daughter. It was Kim’s daughter’s sixth public appearance and her first participation in a non-military event, according to the ROK media.
On February 26, Kim Jong-un attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a new street in Pyongyang, and his “beloved daughter” again accompanied him.
Her name, however, was not mentioned, but in South Korean and Western media the ten-year-old girl allegedly appears under the name Kim Ju-ae, although the DPRK itself has not confirmed the name. Kim Jong-un allegedly disclosed that name to Denis Rodman when the latter visited the North. It is widely believed that Ju-ae is the North Korean leader’s second child – the ROK claims he has an older son (allegedly named Kim Ju-un, born 2010) and a younger child whose gender is unknown.
And so it began… “Secrets of the Pyongyang Court” is a favorite pastime of non-profile or low-quality experts on the DPRK, who try to look for different political factions there or play a game of “guess the successor.” Of course, the closed nature of the country leaves little room for this kind of analysis, but for this reason any conjecture on this topic should be considered speculation. However, with the appearance in the media space of Kim Ju-ae (we will call her that for now), the game of “guess the successor” entered a new turn, especially when anonymous sources” from anti-Pyongyang pro-American NGOs began to report that DPRK residents who bear Ju-ae’s name have been ordered to change their names.
According to Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst on North Korea at the Sejong Institute, in South Korea, all this should leave no doubt as to who is next in line of succession. “In a country where every photo and message in the media is choreographed and inspected, the images showing Kim Ju-ae in the middle apparently signal that she is not just one of his children,” Cheong told the Korea Times. Similarly, the people of the DPRK are gradually beginning to accustom themselves to her presence alongside the leader, similar to the way the younger Kims accompanied the older ones.
However, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of the ROK estimates that the likelihood that Kim Jong-un’s daughter Kim Ju-ae is seen as his successor is very low. As for the reasons why she is accompanying her father, three possibilities have been named: the girl symbolizes the security of the next generation of North Koreans achieved through nuclear weapons; the DPRK leader appears accompanied by his family in order to show the status of the DPRK as a normal state; Kim Ju-ae is simply the closest to her father among all his children, and he cherishes her.
The Unification Ministry is also cautious: as its head Kwon Young-se said on February 15, Pyongyang is preparing in advance for the process of political power transfer between the 3rd and 4th generations of the Kim family, for which it is strengthening the unity and cohesion of the system around the “Paektusan bloodline,” and a certain trend for the elevation of Kim Ju-ae can be seen. But it is too early to draw conclusions; we must wait and see how the situation develops.
On February 27, Kwon again noted that it is “too early to determine whether the North Korean leader’s daughter is his heir.” Kim Jong-un just turned 40, and the North Korean regime is much more patriarchal than in the South. Such a possibility is certainly not out of the question, but “even if North Korea begins grooming her as the next leader, questions remain as to whether she will be able to lead the military-oriented North Korean system,” Kwon said during a radio interview with CBS.
Now we, too, will break down the main arguments for and against the “ten-year heirship” thesis:
Argument 1. Kim Jong-il first introduced his son Kim Jong-un to the nation in 1992, when he was 8 years old. However, he was not officially declared successor until 2008, when Kim Jong-il suffered a life-threatening stroke. And in 2011, after his father’s death, then 27-year-old Kim Jong-un became the leader of the country. Kim Ju-ae is now 10 years old.
Counterargument 1. The version of an eight-year-old successor is promoted by Jang Song Chang, who claims to have interviewed Kim Jong-un’s aunt Ko Yong-suk and her husband, who once fled to the United States, in 2021. According to them, Kim Jong-il began expressing his will to designate Kim Jong-un as his successor around his eighth birthday in 1992, when a propaganda song called “Steps” was sung in front of father and son and their close associates, referring to the “young general.” Allegedly it was on that day that Kim Jong-il said: “Jong-un will be my successor,” and when Ko’s husband pointed out that it might be too early to make such a decision, Kim Jong-il replied, “he took after me”.
Witness testimony of this kind should be treated with caution. Moreover, Ko Yong-suk is known to maintain a deep regime of secrecy, giving no interviews and barely speaking to the press. It is hardly possible to verify whether her words are correctly rendered.
Argument number 2. The child’s appearance can’t be “without a reason,” especially since the girl is being dragged to such specific events.
Counterargument 2. Kim Jong-un was quite seriously into technical modeling as a child. The sources of this information are not entirely valid, but we do know that North Korea has a tradition of training gifted children, which leads us to believe that a girl who grew up in such a family might just be interested in the military and her father might indulge in it.
Argument 3. The daughter is called “beloved” and “precious,” which are adjectives that were used for Kim Jong-un while he was “crown prince.”
Counterargument 3. So far, these epithets are not permanent and the daughter is only mentioned along with her father. If, in the future, schoolchildren are called upon to learn diligence from the “beloved daughter” or she gets a special title like “the new starlet of the great country,” that would be a more serious argument.
Argument 4. The leader’s daughter was depicted on postage stamps and this should be understood as a sign.
Counterargument 4. If we look closely at the content of the stamps that are dedicated to the visit to the military facility, these stamps are not about the daughter after all, but about Kim and his daughter.
And most importantly: the successor must be well prepared. Even if Kim Jong-un decided that this girl has the best qualities of all his descendants, she will have a lot to learn. Kim Jong-un himself graduated from the military academy and has a military technical background in artillery reconnaissance. Kim Jong-il had been a leader for quite a long time, first in culture and then in economics and domestic politics. Kim Jong-un stayed in this status, constantly accompanying his father for about a year and a half. It is clear that Kim Jong-un has reworked the system to suit himself and it is not clear how much the old patterns of successor training can apply to the present times, but ten years is still an insufficient age. It remains to thank those in charge of PR for Kim Jong-un for such a nice move.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”