North Korea’s next ruler? Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Seoul’s spies say

North Korea has never named her, confirmed her age or acknowledged her as Kim Jong-un’s heir. Yet South Korea’s spy agency says the evidence is now unmistakable: his daughter Kim Ju-ae has “effectively” become the successor-in-waiting. The assessment, delivered in a closed-door briefing to the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, was shared with journalists by Youn Kun-young of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea on Monday. “The NIS sees Kim Ju-ae as having effectively entered the stage of being designated as successor,” he said, referring to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. Youn added that the agency believed Ju-ae’s increasingly frequent appearances in state media formed part of a deliberate effort to imprint “her image as a leader on the North Korean people’s minds”. The assessment adds weight to Seoul’s view that Kim Jong-un is preparing his daughter to extend the Kim dynasty’s hereditary rule into a fourth generation. Kim Ju-ae made her public debut in November 2022, when North Korean state media released photographs of her accompanying her father to the test launch of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. She has since appeared at a growing number of military, political and diplomatic events, fuelling speculation that she is being prepared as heir apparent. Her public profile has broadened beyond military events. She joined her father on a trip to Beijing in September, her first known appearance abroad, and in January this year made her first public visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum housing the remains of her grandfather and great-grandfather, Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung. That appearance was widely seen as symbolically significant given the regime’s dynastic succession. State media has also been keen to promote a more martial image, photographing her inspecting and firing a new type of sniper rifle before senior military officials in February, test-firing a pistol and operating a new main battle tank alongside her father in March and attending a performance in July marking the 73rd anniversary of the Korean war armistice. Most recently, she joined her parents at Pyongyang’s Liberation Tower, which honours former Soviet troops, and at the Daesongsan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery for the 81st anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule. ‘Princess training’ Though many details about Ju-ae remain shrouded in secrecy, analysts broadly agree she is being groomed as a potential successor – but add that she is still young for a formal declaration. Believed to be 13, Ju-ae would need another five years to reach adulthood and become eligible to join the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, seen as a prerequisite for any formal path towards leadership. “She is still receiving princess training for possible succession. There is no sign that the party has made any decision to make her successor, even internally,” said Oh Gyeong-seob of the Korea Institute for National Unification. Oh and others argue that the real marker to watch for is bureaucratic, not photographic: an appointment to a senior party or military post, such as a seat on the Central Military Commission or the Party Central Committee. Ri Il-gyu, a former North Korean diplomat who defected after serving as a political counsellor at the embassy in Cuba, described a shift in terminology in the Chosun Daily last month. Ju-ae was first called “beloved offspring”, he wrote, then “respected offspring”, before being elevated to “the great one who guides the way”. Internal party lecture materials now describe her as “the new star of Joseon” and “General of the New Star”, he added. “Her central role in public appearances carries clear political meaning,” Ri wrote. “Kim Jong-un’s early efforts to imprint his young daughter on the public reflect long-term calculations for succession.” State protocol reinforces the message in subtler ways too: Ju-ae is invariably positioned beside or near the centre of the action alongside her father, dressed at times in a leather coat that echoes his own – visual shorthand tying her to the “sacred” Paektu bloodline from which the Kim family claims its legitimacy. A three-rung ladder Succession in North Korea is a three-rung ladder, according to Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies: education, internal designation and finally, an official announcement. By his reckoning, Ju-ae has barely stepped onto the first rung. “She has no party post and there is no sign that Ju-ae is at the centre of a personality cult,” he said. Ju-ae featured in no discussion at the Workers’ Party’s ninth congress in February, he said, and was conspicuously absent when a senior Chinese delegation led by No 4 official Wang Huning met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang in July. The real test of her status would come at the next party congress, Yang said. “We have to wait and see until the 10th party congress due in 2031, when she will be 18, to see what kind of official title she dons.” Even reaching adulthood clears only the first hurdle. North Korea’s deeply patriarchal political culture could complicate any attempt to install a daughter rather than a son as supreme leader. North Korea has never had a female leader and defectors describe a society where Confucian-inflected male chauvinism endures beneath the state’s official socialist ideology. Oh said Kim Jong-un could help clear the way for his daughter by removing potential rivals within the ruling elite. “Her father would pave the way for her succession through purges and executions as he himself did after seizing power following his father Kim Jong-il’s death in 2011,” Oh said. “But at the end of the day, it would depend on her own ability to overcome those challenges in the future by removing uncooperative political elites.” Summit signals The succession assessment was not the only headline to emerge from Monday’s briefing. The NIS also reportedly told lawmakers that it had obtained blueprints for North Korean missiles and was analysing them. It further said that a summit between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump “could be possible at any time”, according to Youn – though it stressed there was no confirmed evidence of direct contact between the two governments, only “signs” pointing towards dialogue. It would be their fourth meeting. Trump and Kim met three times in 2018 and 2019, but talks collapsed after their ill-fated Hanoi summit failed to produce a deal on denuclearisation. Speculation over a repeat encounter has been building for weeks, driven largely from the American side. Pyongyang has offered no direct response to Trump’s overtures and continues to denounce what it calls Washington’s hostile policy towards the North. As Oh put it: “These differences are very hard to be narrowed down.”

North Korea’s next ruler? Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Seoul’s spies say

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}She has the leather coat and state media backing, but analysts say Kim Ju-ae’s youth and gender will complicate her rise

She has the leather coat and state media backing, but analysts say Kim Ju-ae’s youth and gender will complicate her rise