South Korea said on Wednesday that it is still premature to determine whether North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s recently revealed daughter is being groomed as her father’s successor.
Speculation about the status of Kim’s daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae and about 10 years old, has intensified further since she recently took center stage at a massive military parade in Pyongyang and was featured on postage stamps soon to be released. will launch, both events with their almighty father.
During a parliamentary committee meeting in Seoul, Unification Minister Kwon Youngse, South Korea’s top official on North Korea, questioned the belief that she is being groomed as the North’s next leader. Kwon cited Kim Jong Un’s relatively young age (Kim turned 39 last month) and North Korea’s male-dominated power hierarchy.
“There are visions that (his appearances) aim to talk about a hereditary transition of power. But considering Kim Jong Un’s age and the fact that North Korea is much more patriarchal in nature than ours, there are also a lot of questions about whether North Korea has a woman (poised to) inherit power now is correct. Kwon told lawmakers.
Kwon said the girl’s repeated appearances in recent months were likely aimed at bolstering public support for Kim’s ruling family and preparing for a future hereditary transfer of power.
South Korean media have speculated that Kim Jong Un also has a son older than Kim Ju Ae and a third child, probably a girl. But Kwon said that only Kim Ju Ae is the officially confirmed daughter of his father.
North Korea revealed Kim Ju Ae in November by announcing that he watched an ICBM test with his father. Since then, he has made four other public appearances, including last week’s military parade.
State media have called her Kim’s “most loved” or “respected” daughter and released a large number of photos and videos showing her closeness with her father. She was seen touching Kim’s cheek at an observation post for the military parade and sitting in the seat of honor at a previous banquet while flanked by her parents and generals, in what observers say had been unimaginable in South Korea. North because Kim is the subject of a personality cult that treats him like a god.
Designs released by North Korea’s state-owned Korea Stamp Corporation earlier this week also show Kim Ju Ae on five of eight new stamps to be distributed starting Friday to celebrate the November flight test of the intercontinental ballistic missile. Hwasong-17, an event she attended The stamps carried previously publicized images showing the girl holding her father’s hand as they walked near the missile and posed for photos with her father in front of a wall of applauding soldiers days after the missile was launched. Hwasong-17.
After her first public appearance, lawmakers were told by the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s top spy agency, that she was Kim’s second daughter, according to some of the lawmakers who attended a door-to-door briefing. closed. The spy service later said it believed that by taking his daughter to public events, Kim Jong Un intended to show the public his determination to hand over power to one of his sons in the future, though it assessed that the younger Kim’s appearances were not it would necessarily mean that he would succeed his father.
Ju Ae’s name matched what retired NBA star Dennis Rodman named Kim’s daughter, whom he said he saw and held during his trip to Pyongyang in 2013. Rodman told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that Kim Jong Un was a “good father” to his daughter and that “Marshal Kim and I spent a relaxing time by the sea with his family.”
Since its founding in 1948, North Korea has successively been ruled by male members of the Kim family. Outside studies show that only a fraction of North Korea’s top officials are women, including Kim Jong Un’s younger sister Kim Yo Jong and Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui. Before Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011, his father Kim Jong Il ruled for 17 years, and before him, his father and founder of the state, Kim Il Sung, ruled for 46 years. .
“It’s too early to assume that (Kim Ju Ae) will be his heir because the son has always been successful on the North Korean throne,” said Duyeon Kim, a senior analyst at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC. “So, we don’t yet know if Kim Jong Un is willing to break tradition regarding the gender of his successor or if he will play a key role in supporting whomever Kim appoints.”
