North Korea has unveiled the little-known daughter of its leader Kim Jong Un at a missile launch site, attracting keen attention on a fourth-generation member of the dynastic family that has ruled North Korea for greater than seven a long time.
The North’s state media said Saturday that Kim had observed the launch of its recent variety of intercontinental ballistic missile together with his wife Ri Sol Ju, their “beloved daughter” and other officials the day before today. Kim said the launch of the Hwasong-17 missile — the North’s longest-range, nuclear-capable missile — proved he has a reliable weapon to contain US-led military threats.
The fundamental Rodong Sinmun newspaper also released a slew of photos of Kim watching a soaring missile from a distance together with his daughter. Other photos showed her together with her hair pulled back, wearing a white jacket and a pair of red shoes as she walked in hand-in-hand together with her father by an enormous missile atop a launch truck.
It’s the primary time for North Korea’s state media to say the daughter or publicize her photos. KCNA didn’t provide further details about her like her name and age.
Much of Kim’s private life remains to be unknown. But South Korean media reported Kim married Ri, a former singer, in 2009, and that the couple has three children who were born in 2010, 2013 and 2017.
It wasn’t known which child Kim took to the launch site. But in 2013, after a visit to Pyongyang, retired NBA star Dennis Rodman told the British newspaper the Guardian that he and Kim had a “relaxing time by the ocean” with the leader’s family and that he held Kim’s baby daughter, named Ju Ae.
The identities of Kim’s children are a source of strong outside interest because the 38-year-old ruler hasn’t publicly anointed an heir apparent.
The Kim family has governed North Korea with a robust personality following built around key relations since Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, founded the country in 1948. The family’s so-called Paektu bloodline, named after the North’s most sacred mountain, allows only direct relations to rule the country.
“It’s much too soon to infer anything about succession throughout the Kim regime,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “Nonetheless, publicly including his wife and daughter in what Kim claims as a historically successful missile test associates the family business of ruling North Korea with the nation’s missile programs.”
“This may occasionally be an try to compensate for the way few economic accomplishments Kim has to support his domestic legitimacy,” Easley said.
Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang on the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said if Kim continues to take this daughter to key public events, that might signal that she would turn out to be Kim’s successor.
“Under North Korea’s system, the kids of Kim Jong Un would have the status of a prince or princess, like in a dynasty. Because the Rodong Sinmnum newspaper publicized the photo of the daughter, who took after Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju a lot … she has no selection but to live special lives,” Cheong said.
Other observers say Kim taking his family to a missile test site indicated he was confident within the weapon’s successful launch, or that he might need tried to burnish a picture as a traditional leader including his family in his affairs.
The disclosure of the Kim family child has taken many North Korea watchers by surprise.
It was only in 2010 when Kim, then 26, was first publicly mentioned in state media as he took a spate of top posts before he inherited power upon his father Kim Jong Il’s death the subsequent 12 months. Kim Jong Il was also 31 when he won a key post within the ruling Staff’ Party in 1973 — an appointment seen as a key step in the trail to succeeding his father Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il’s position as successor was made public on the party congress in 1980.
But Cheong said Kim Jong Il privately told associates that Kim Jong Un, his third and youngest son, would succeed him when the younger Kim was 8 years old, in 1992. Cheong said Kim’s aunt and her husband, who had defected to the USA, told him that a song praising Kim Jong Un was played and that Kim Jong Il said Kim Jong Un was his successor.
“Kim Jong Un could have his daughter, who resembles him probably the most in his mind, as his successor,” Cheong said.
