Defectors report North Korea preparing daughter for leadership
South Korean intelligence and recent escapees say Kim Ju Ae is being treated as the successor, challenging the patriarchal norms of the regime.
By Anthony Lawson ·
North Korean defectors in Seoul report that the country is positioning its leader's daughter as the next head of state.
Kim Jong Un has appeared publicly with his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, at major events since late 2022. These appearances include weapons tests and military parades. State media describes her as the leader's most beloved child. Images from these events show her standing in front of her father and senior officials kneeling before her. This protocol mirrors how Kim Jong Un was treated as a child during his father's rule.
South Korea's spy agency assesses that Kim Ju Ae is the likely heir. Eight of the eleven defectors interviewed for this report agree. They cite specific behaviors from officials inside North Korea. Tae Yongho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, noted that officials treat the girl with the same protocols reserved for a successor. Kang Mi-Jin, who runs an economic analysis firm, said contacts inside the country confirmed this belief via smuggled phones. Jung Gwang-il, a smuggling specialist, reported that North Koreans in Chinese border towns hold the same view.
Skepticism persists due to the gender of the potential leader. North Korea remains a deeply patriarchal society. According to South Korea's Unification Ministry, only one of the seventeen department directors for the ruling Workers' Party is a woman. That position is held by Kim Jong Un's younger sister, Kim Yo Jong. Kim Jeong-Ah, a former army officer who defected in 2009, said her contacts find the idea of a young girl as supreme leader nonsensical. However, Lee Si-young, who heads Free North Korea Radio, noted that older contacts are unhappy with a woman taking power, but members of the Kim family are viewed as gods above humans, making gender less relevant to the ruling elite.
The Kim family has ruled North Korea since 1948. Two previous transitions of power occurred without public resistance. Kim Jong Il took over in 1994 after serving as his father's deputy for two decades. Kim Jong Un assumed leadership in 2011 at age 27 and consolidated power through high-profile purges. Analysts expect the next transition will follow this pattern. Ahn Chan-il, a scholar at the World Institute for North Korean Studies, said North Koreans will passively accept a hereditary succession. Oh Gyeong-seob, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, compared the system to presidential elections in other countries, noting that both the elite and general citizens accept it as a matter of course.
Kim Yumi, 32, defected to South Korea three years ago after her family's fishing business suffered under pandemic regulations. She said she and her husband wanted to spare their children from a fourth-generation dictatorship. She did not know about Kim Ju Ae until Kim Jong Un introduced the girl at a missile launch site in November 2022. She stated that ordinary people know little about the Kim family's private lives because paying attention to them can be dangerous. North Korea's surveillance apparatus keeps citizens from voicing discontent, helping enforce political loyalty.
South Korean officials believe Kim Ju Ae has a younger sibling whose gender has not been confirmed. The leader, who is 42, is assessed by the spy agency to be at high risk of cardiovascular disease due to obesity but shows no other signs of poor health. Defectors agree that Kim Jong Un is likely to designate one of his children to prolong the family's rule. This move is expected to face little resistance within the country.
