N. Korea refers to Kim’s daughter by term reserved for ‘top leaders’
Seoul, South Korea — North Korean state media on Saturday referred to leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter as a “great person of guidance,” employing a term usually reserved for senior leaders and hinting at her status as a potential successor, analysts said.
Both the English- and Korean-language versions of an official Korean Central News Agency report on Kim and his daughter’s visit to a greenhouse farm used the plural form of the honorific, suggesting it applied to both of them.
“The great persons of guidance, together with cadres of the Party, the government and the military, went round the farm,” read the English-language report, which ran with images of the pair.
AnalystssaiditwasthefirsttimeKim’sdaughter--nevernamed by Pyongyang’s state media, but identified as JuAe by South Korean intelligence -- had been described as such by the North.
“This is the first expression of elevating Kim Ju Ae to the ranks of” a leader, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
The North Korean term “hyangdo” -- meaning guidance -- is typically only reserved for “top leaders or successors” of the isolated regime, said Cheong Seong-chang, director of Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute.
“This level of personal worship for Kim Ju Ae strongly suggests that she will succeed Kim Jong Un as the next leader of North Korea,” Cheong added.
At Kim’s side
Kim Jong Un -- the grandson of North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung and the third generation of the Kim family to lead the country -- married his wife Ri Sol Ju in 2009, according to Seoul’s spy agency.
JuAe was first introduced to the world by Pyongyang’s state media in 2022, when she accompanied her father to the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
She has since been seen at many of her father’s official engagements, including military drills, a visit to a weapons factory, a stop at a new chicken farm and a military parade.
In an image released by Pyongyang on Saturday, Ju Ae was seen using binoculars to observe recent paratroop drills, standing beside her father and senior military officials.