Kim’s daughter seen with him again, heats up succession debate
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter made a public appearance again, this time with missile scientists and more honorific titles as her father’s “most beloved” or “precious” child. She’s only about 10, but her new, bold photos are deepening the debate over whether she’s being primed as a successor.
The daughter, believed to be Kim’s second child named Ju Ae and about 9 or 10 years old, was first unveiled to the outside world last weekend in state media photos showing her observing the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch with her parents and other officials. The daughter wearing a white puffy coat and red shoes was shown walking handin-hand with Kim past a huge missile loaded on a launch truck and watching a soaring weapon.
On Sunday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency mentioned her for the second time, saying she and Kim took group photos with scientists, officials and others involved in the test-launch of the missile. It described her as Kim’s “most beloved” or “precious” child, a more honorific title than her previous description of “(Kim’s) beloved” child on its November 19 dispatch. Official photos showed the daughter in a long, black coat holding her father’s arm.
“This is certainly striking. The photograph of Kim Ju Ae standing alongside her father while being celebrated by technicians and scientists involved in the latest ICBM launch would support the idea that this is the start of her being positioned as a potential successor,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “State media underscoring her father’s love for her further underscores this, I think. Finally, both of her initial public appearances have been in the context of strategic nuclear weapons — the crown jewels of North Korea’s national defense capabilities. That doesn’t strike me as coincidental,” he said.
North Korea has made no mention of Kim’s reported two other children. But speculation that his eldest child is a son has led some experts to question how a daughter can be Kim’s successor given the male-dominated, patriarchal nature of North Korean society.
Analyst Cheong Seong-chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said that he cannot make his son his successor if he thinks he lacks leadership. Cheong said Kim may be preventing potential pushback for choosing a daughter as a leader, so he likely brought her to a successful ICBM event to help public loyalty be carried on to his daughter.