This text was written and researched as a part of the second cohort of 38 North’s Rising Students Fellowship Program, below the mentorship of senior consultants on North Korean affairs. This system and collection have been made attainable via beneficiant help by the Henry Luce Basis. For extra papers on this collection, click on right here.
Within the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), state media have continually proven girls in significant, if not highly effective, positions since Kim Jong Un got here to energy in December 2011. These figures embrace Choe Son Hui, the nation’s first feminine international minister, and Ri Sol Ju, Kim Jong Un’s spouse, whom he disclosed to the general public in July 2012, quickly after his ascendance to energy. Most hanging, nonetheless, is the emergence of two girls belonging to the Mount Paektu Bloodline, the direct descendants of the DPRK’s founding father Kim Il Sung: Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s youthful sister, and Kim Ju Ae, his daughter.
Kim Yo Jong is believed to be solely round 4 years youthful than her brother and at present holds a number of formal positions inside North Korea’s political system, serving as a member of the Employee’s Social gathering of Korea (WPK) Central Committee (CC) and a deputy to the fifteenth Supreme Individuals’s Meeting. On February 28, Pyongyang’s official Korea Central Information Company (KCNA) reported that she was appointed to the director of the Normal Affairs Division of the WPK CC.
Kim Ju Ae is believed to be round 13 years outdated and is the primary youngster of the Kim household to be revealed to the general public at such a younger age. Regardless of her growing visibility in state media and at main political and navy occasions since 2022, she doesn’t have any formal titles and is beneath the minimal age of 18 required for WPK membership. However, within the lead-up to North Korea’s Ninth Social gathering Congress, BBC reported that the South Korean Nationwide Intelligence Service (NIS) claimed Kim Jong Un had chosen his daughter as his inheritor. The idea for this assertion is unclear.
This brings us to a central query: Is Kim Ju Ae a viable successor candidate? Given Kim Ju Ae’s growing visibility and Kim Yo Jong’s increasing institutional authority, it might be recommended that girls of the Mount Paektu bloodline are assuming extra distinguished political and public roles. Nevertheless, it stays troublesome to conclude that this constitutes a transparent indication of feminine succession. Whereas these appearances counsel the potential for ladies to imagine extra distinguished roles, the opaque nature of decision-making and deeply entrenched patriarchal norms in North Korea make it unsure whether or not they might train substantive political authority. Cautious consideration to state media portrayals and formal appointments could present perception into whether or not such symbolic visibility might translate into institutionalized energy.
Evolving Position of Ladies in Kim Jong Un’s Period
Kim Ju Ae’s and Kim Yo Jong’s distinguished visibility exemplifies a broader sample below Kim Jong Un, through which girls have more and more appeared round him in public occasions. This represents a notable departure from the Kim Jong Il period and is especially hanging in North Korea, the place male-centric considering stays deeply entrenched.
Kim Jong Il by no means appeared together with his wives in public and didn’t deliver his companions to his public actions and occasions, as an alternative presenting himself alone in most settings. Though his youthful sister, Kim Kyong Hui, held a number of official positions all through her profession, she remained largely out of the general public eye till June 2009, when her public profile elevated noticeably, because the Kim regime was making ready to debut Kim Jong Un because the successor.
Against this, Kim Jong Un has actively showcased his spouse, Ri Sol Ju, in public. In 2012, the couple attended the opening ceremony of an amusement park arm in arm, signaling a visual departure from previous observe. Ri’s vogue decisions, typically described as daring and fashionable, have stood out in a society nonetheless deeply influenced by patriarchal norms.[1]
Within the diplomatic sphere, Ri has additionally appeared to tackle the function of a primary girl, at instances softening Kim Jong Un’s in any other case austere public picture. She accompanied him throughout conferences with Moon Jae-in and his spouse in September 2018, and co-hosted Xi Jinping and his spouse throughout their first go to to Pyongyang in June 2019. One attainable rationalization is obtainable by Gomi, who argues that Ri’s public presence helps mission a recent and individualized picture to the inhabitants.[2]
In Kim Jong Un’s early years in management, Kim Yo Jong was shut by his facet in roles that supported and complemented him. She has amassed a number of and notable formal positions inside the occasion and state equipment and has emerged as a key determine within the regime’s exterior messaging, indicating that she workout routines a major diploma of affect and sensible authority past a merely symbolic function. Their shut relationship and her rising political profile led many analysts to beforehand consider she was being groomed as a possible successor, regardless of their slender age hole. Nevertheless, this assertion has largely light away.
Since being revealed, Kim Ju Ae has made quite a few public appearances with Kim Jong Un at main state occasions, together with her distinguished seating throughout symbolic events reminiscent of New 12 months’s celebrations. In North Korea, such choreographed visibility and spatial positioning typically point out political favor. Whereas she at present holds no formal occasion, navy, or administrative place, and deeply entrenched patriarchal norms could constrain the feasibility of a feminine successor, her repeated publicity has however led to huge hypothesis she could possibly be thought-about a possible successor.
Debate Over Kim Ju Ae
Whereas Kim Ju Ae at present holds no formal political authority, she is commonly recommended to be a possible future successor to her father as chief of the DPRK. Since her first look in North Korean state media in 2022, she has been publicly noticed on Korean Central Tv (KCTV) greater than 600 days over the previous three years, starting together with her debut on Pyongyang’s Korea Central Tv (KCTV). By October 2025, she had appeared on KCTV on 41 events, 25 of which have been associated to navy occasions, the biggest proportion amongst all classes.
Professor Atsuhito Isozaki of Keio College has noticed that her presence throughout a variety of occasions means that the Kim Jong Un regime maintains agency management over the navy to the extent that it may well afford to show a possible successor in such settings. He additional notes that this visibility could even point out the potential for successor schooling, reflecting the regime’s confidence and institutional stability.[3] Nevertheless, the identical could possibly be stated about merely the publicity and schooling of a younger Kim youngster no matter succession standing. Generally, Kim Jong Un should have excessive confidence within the stability and security of his environment to deliver his youngster round.
Kim Ju Ae, when she does make public appearances, is often featured prominently on the entrance pages of Rodong Sinmun, the occasion day by day newspaper. Since 2022, the phrases “beloved youngster” and “revered youngster” have been used to explain her. Within the March 16, 2024, situation of Rodong Sinmun, reporting included the phrase “nice guiders,” which is known to refer collectively to Kim Jong Un and Kim Ju Ae. In response to Isozaki, this time period has traditionally been reserved for a choose few, notably the supreme chief, because it signifies clarifying the trail ahead in revolutionary battle and suggests a major symbolic elevation of her standing. Nevertheless, given the dearth of precedent, the implications of such language must be interpreted with warning.
This symbolic prominence has led Isozaki to counsel that Kim Ju Ae could also be accorded a standing superior to that of Kim Yo Jong and Ri Sol Ju. For instance, in August 2024, Yo Jong is noticed escorting Ju Ae to her seat, which suggests a hierarchical distinction. He notes that Ju Ae is handled as an distinctive determine, emphasizing that whereas KCNA doesn’t explicitly outline her political function, her steady publicity helps normalize her presence in public life and reinforce her symbolic significance.[4]
Alternatively, Ri Il Gyu, a former high-level diplomat at North Korea’s Cuban embassy who defected to South Korea in 2023, doesn’t consider that Kim Ju Ae is more likely to succeed her father, given the significance the regime locations on its patriarchal lineage. He contends that Ju Ae’s inherited energy would signify the top of the Mount Paektu bloodline, thereby undermining the hereditary basis of the Kim dynasty.
On the similar time, he notes that Ju Ae’s current public appearances seem to convey a message to the North Korean populace {that a} fourth-generation succession is forthcoming. Even when Ju Ae herself just isn’t designated because the successor, these appearances lay the ideological groundwork for legitimizing the succession of a kid of Kim Jong Un.
Ju Ae’s frequent and extremely seen public appearances in addition to her obvious proximity to her father represent observable options of current state media illustration. Whereas these developments have led some analysts to view her as a possible candidate for succession, the absence of clear precedent and institutional affirmation makes such interpretations essentially tentative.
Repeated publicity additionally seems to form public notion. By photographs and pictures alone, audiences could more and more come to affiliate Ju Ae as an essential determine in North Korean management, very similar to her mom and her aunt have been portrayed. State media have persistently portrayed her in shut bodily proximity to Kim Jong Un, together with scenes through which they maintain palms or work together affectionately. On the New 12 months’s celebration efficiency in 2026, for instance, such photographs have been once more prominently featured. These portrayals message, as a minimum, the seemingly shut relationship between Kim Jong Un and his daughter and the significance he locations on his household.
At that very same time, Ju Ae stays in her early teenagers, and questions have been raised relating to age norms and potential gender constraints in North Korea’s management construction. The extent to which such components would apply in observe stays unsure given the opacity of the system.
Conclusion
The general public elevation of feminine members of Kim Jong Un’s household, together with his daughter, sister, and spouse, could counsel a shift in representational practices below his management. The broader significance of this development remains to be unclear—notably, how a lot is in regards to the girls themselves versus shaping Kim Jong Un’s public picture as a frontrunner, a husband, a brother, a father, or not like his father, a person of the individuals.
Within the coming years, specific consideration must be paid to future political appointments, or potential adjustments in terminology describing Kim Ju Ae,even the visible framing and frequency of her appearances in North Korean media, and particularly the framing of feminine management in public discourse. Will there be extra than simply the Kim household girls to achieve visibility in public and particularly political life? Will extra girls be elevated into elite positions to help the concept of feminine management writ massive? These adjustments might function indicators of whether or not her function is transitioning from symbolic illustration to a extra institutionalized political place. Furthermore, when succession occurs will matter to what the alternatives are at the moment. Kim Yo Jong, whereas round her brother’s age, is unlikely a deliberate successor, however ought to one thing occur to Kim Jong Un within the short-term, she could possibly be a part of a contingency plan given her household standing and gained political energy.
Nevertheless, it must be saved in thoughts that every part round how younger Ju Ae is being portrayed is unprecedented, so tweaks in language and title could possibly be as a lot discovering the fitting tone as intentional signaling. Furthermore, the entire lack of knowledge about Kim Jong Un’s different kids must also be purpose for warning in studying an excessive amount of into the present state of affairs.
