Kim Jong Un has chosen his teen daughter Kim Ju Ae as North Korea’s future leader, a South Korean spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday.
If the North Korean dictator makes the announcement, it will mark the first time a female leader will rule the hermit kingdom.
Mr Kim is making the moves to extend the family dynasty to a fourth generation, an assessment by the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) revealed in a closed-door briefing to the country’s lawmakers.
North Korea is set to hold its biggest political conference later this month where Mr Kim will outline his major policy goals for the next five years and tighten his grip on the country.
The NIS will monitor whether Mr Kim’s believed to be 13-years-old daughter will appear with him as he addresses thousands of delegates at the upcoming Workers’ Party Congress, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun after attending the briefing by the NIS.
“In the past, (NIS) described Kim Ju Ae as being in the midst of ‘successor training.’ What was notable today is that they used the term ‘successor-designate stage,’ a shift that’s quite significant,” Mr Lee said.
The speculation is not new for the experts monitoring the activities inside Pyongyang as Kim Ju Ae is increasingly viewed as his Mr Kim’s likely successor, with her high-profile trip to China in 2025 further cementing her prominent status.
The girl, likely in her early teens and bearing a close resemblance to her mother, accompanied her father on what was his first visit to a major gathering of world leaders and her first known trip abroad. North Korean state media footage captured her presence during the Beijing visit.
According to Mr Lee, the NIS is tracking the teenager’s growing presence at high-profile military events, her inclusion in the family visit to Kumsusan, and signs that Mr Kim was beginning to seek her input on certain policy matters.
The South Korean intelligence agency was initially sceptical that Kim Ju Ae could be chosen as a North Korean leader, owing to the country’s deeply conservative culture and male-dominated leadership seen to be at the helm of ruling the country.
However, in September last year when the North Korean leader was accompanied by his daughter, the NIS said in its assessment that the move was likely a part of an effort to build a “narrative” possibly paving the way for her succession.
North Korean state media outlets have never published her name, referring to her as Kim Jong Un’s “respected” or “most beloved” child. The belief that she is named Kim Ju Ae is based on an account by former NBA champion Dennis Rodman, in which he recalled holding Kim Jong Un’s baby daughter during a trip to Pyongyang in 2013.
Her exact age is unconfirmed but South Korean intelligence officials believe she was born in 2013.
She first appeared in public at a long-range missile test in November 2022 and she was later seeing accompanying Mr Kim to an increasing number of events, including weapons tests, military parades and factory openings.
In a major turn, she appeared alongside her father in Beijing last September for Mr Kim’s first summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Speculation about her political future intensified last month when she joined her parents on a New Year’s Day visit to Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, a sacred family mausoleum displaying the embalmed bodies of her late grandfather and great-grandfather, the country’s first- and second-generation leaders. Some experts saw the visit as the clearest sign yet that she’s positioned to be the heir to her 42-year-old father.
North Korea, since its foundation in 1948, has been ruled by male members of the Kim family, beginning with the country’s founder Kim Il Sung and followed by his son, Kim Jong Il.
Kim Jong Un was just 26 when he was officially named heir during a 2010 party conference, two years after Kim Jong Il suffered a debilitating stroke. Following his father’s death in December 2011, he was abruptly thrust into the throne with relatively little preparation.
