Kim’s daughter again appears in public, heating up succession debate
SEOUL, South Korea — 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 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, was unveiled to the outside world last weekend in state media photos showing her observing the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch the previous day with her parents and other older officials.
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 what it called the test-launch of its Hwasong-17 ICBM.
KCNA 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 Nov. 19 dispatch. Taking after her mother Ri Sol Ju, who wasn’t visible in any of the photos Sunday, she had a more mature appearance than in her unveiling a week ago.
“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.
South Korean media previously speculated Kim has three children — born in 2010, 2013 and 2017 — and that the first child is a son while the third is a daughter.
North Korea has made no mention of Kim’s reported 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 nature of North Korean society. Kim is a third-generation member of the family that has run North Korea for more than seven decades, and his father and grandfather successively governed the country before he inherited power in 2011.
“If we assume that the male child — who has yet to be revealed — will be the heir, is Ju Ae truly Kim’s most ‘precious,’ from a succession standpoint?” said Soo Kim, a security analyst at the California-based Rand Corp. “I think it is too early to draw any conclusions.”