Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on Daily NK’s Korean website in March 2024.
Kim Jong Un’s youngest daughter, Kim Ju Ae, has now been appearing at her father’s side in public for more than a year and a half. Each appearance stirs fresh debate among analysts and in the press: Is she being groomed as heir to the world’s only dynastic nuclear state? The question, though understandable, may be precisely the one Pyongyang wants the world to ask.
The author has maintained since Kim Ju Ae’s debut in November 2022 that she is best understood not as a designated successor but as a carefully staged fixture, one playing two distinct roles: a cameo (the brief but memorable appearance designed to generate curiosity) and an intro (a prologue meant to normalize the idea of perpetual Paektu bloodline rule). That assessment has not changed.
On March 15, 2024, Kim Jong Un brought his young daughter to observe airborne special forces training and then to the inauguration ceremony of the Kangdong comprehensive greenhouse, her first public appearance in 36 days since the Feb. 8 Korean People’s Army founding anniversary celebrations. The Korean Central News Agency’s coverage of the greenhouse event was notably understated: rather than listing Kim Ju Ae by name alongside her father and other senior officials such as Premier Kim Tok Hun, state media described the attendees collectively as “the great guiding figures,” releasing photographs without separate mention of her presence. At the airborne unit visit, she was not mentioned in any direct or indirect way at all.
This pattern merits attention. It is inconsistent with how a formally designated successor would be presented.
Signs pointing toward succession
Many analysts who favor the succession hypothesis cite three categories of evidence: public activity, honorifics, and the scale of her personality cult.
In terms of public activity, Kim Ju Ae has accompanied her father to military events in 22 of her 26 documented public appearances, with civilian visits making up the remaining four. Those non-military appearances include the February 2023 groundbreaking for a new residential district in Pyongyang’s Sopha area, a New Year’s gala in December 2023, a poultry farm visit in North Hwanghae province’s Hwangju county in January 2024, and the March 2024 Kangdong greenhouse inauguration. Her scope appears to be widening gradually, and future visits to Mount Paekdu revolutionary sites or ideological ceremonies could serve to reinforce the Paektu bloodline image further.
The honorifics applied to her have escalated in stages: from “beloved child” to “respected child” to “most esteemed offspring.” Unverified internal party study materials have reportedly referred to her using the titles “morning star” and “general,” terms historically reserved for the supreme leader and designated heir. The March 15, 2024, KCNA report’s use of the plural “great guiding figures” is also being read by some analysts as an early signal of co-leadership framing.
As for her personal cult, the scale has been striking. From February 2023, she was seated on the presidium at military parade events alongside the country’s top leadership. In September of that year, Pak Jong Chon, the top-ranked general in the Korean People’s Army, was observed kneeling before her at the presidium. In November 2023, a commemorative postage stamp bearing both Kim Jong Un’s and Kim Ju Ae’s images was issued to mark the first anniversary of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch that first brought her to public attention, and that launch date was designated Missile Industry Day.
The relevant legal framework does not foreclose the possibility either. The Ten Principles for Establishing the Party’s Monolithic Ideological System, revised in June 2013, mandates that revolutionary succession continue through the Paektu bloodline without specifying gender. The five-part theory of succession developed under Kim Il Sung likewise makes no distinction between sons and daughters.
The case against
The indicators cited above are real, but they are also the kind that a “theater state” like North Korea can manufacture on demand. The structural arguments against Kim Ju Ae’s succession are harder to dismiss.
First, Kim Jong Un created the position of first secretary at the Eighth WPK Congress in January 2021, explicitly designating it as the role to be filled in the event of his incapacitation. The position, described as a stand-in for the general secretary, can be filled at any time by the Political Bureau’s Standing Committee (currently five members including Kim Jong Un himself), without waiting for a party congress. This mechanism already provides a contingency arrangement. In that context, formally designating a 10-year-old daughter as second-in-command would be redundant and strategically counterproductive. The first secretary slot, when eventually filled, is more plausibly Kim Yo Jong’s to occupy. She functions as what might be called a libero, a player without a fixed position who operates freely across the full field of power, and the choreography around Kim Ju Ae’s public appearances most likely reflects her direction.
Second, Kim Ju Ae was born in 2013, making her roughly 10 or 11 years old. Both Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un began their succession training after university, as young adults, and both were groomed in relative secrecy before being publicly identified. The sudden and conspicuous introduction of Kim Ju Ae into the public eye, dressed and styled as a miniature adult from the very first appearance, is inconsistent with how Pyongyang has historically managed succession. A genuine heir would be being educated quietly.
Third, North Korean political culture remains deeply shaped by Confucian patriarchal norms. In a state built on military authority and structured around the concept of a male supreme leader, a female succession, while not theoretically prohibited, would represent a significant and risky departure from entrenched convention.
Fourth, and perhaps most decisively, there is a dynastic logic problem. Should Kim Ju Ae eventually marry and have children, those children would take her husband’s surname, breaking the Kim family Paektu bloodline. This would place her succession in direct contradiction with the Ten Principles, which require that the revolutionary line pass through the bloodline itself, understood in North Korea as a literal blood and surname lineage.
Fifth, Kim Jong Un is 40 years old. Designating a successor at this stage, even informally, would begin splitting loyalties that Pyongyang requires to remain singular. Hwang Jang Yop, a senior party secretary who defected to South Korea in 1996, testified that Kim Il Sung himself later regretted transferring power to Kim Jong Il as early as he did in the 1980s, when Kim Il Sung was approaching 80.
Finally, North Korea has still not officially disclosed Kim Ju Ae’s name. State media continues to refer to her by the collective honorific “most esteemed offspring” without attaching a name or title. This is itself a sign that no formal decision has been made.
Conclusion
The “Kim Ju Ae as successor” narrative holds superficial appeal when measured against the honorifics and ceremonial treatment she has received. But a fuller accounting requires weighing her age and gender within North Korea’s specific political culture, the existence of the first secretary contingency mechanism, the very likely existence of other Kim children, the dynastic surname problem, and the fact that Kim Jong Un, at 40 and still active, has no compelling reason to invite the loyalty divisions that formal succession entails.
The more durable interpretation is that Kim Ju Ae’s public appearances serve a package of strategic purposes: amplifying international focus on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, muddying the push for tighter sanctions, normalizing the idea of perpetual Paektu bloodline rule, projecting an image of a leader who cares about future generations, and potentially complicating any hypothetical precision decapitation strike by the United States.
In short, Kim Jong Un is using his young daughter as a political instrument calibrated to his own needs of the moment. The gambit may be generating short-term dividends, but over the longer term it risks eroding the mystique surrounding the ruling family, reopening questions about the circumstances of Kim Ju Ae’s birth, and feeding the very speculation about succession it ostensibly means to foreclose.
The appropriate response is to keep the possibility of her eventual succession on the table while recognizing that succession in North Korea is a high-order equation with many unknowns, requiring years of development across multiple stages. More fundamentally, the international community should focus on what Kim Ju Ae’s appearances are designed to distract from: the accelerating development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and the continued suffering of the North Korean people under a system that perpetuates itself through hereditary rule.
The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Daily NK.
April 7, 2026 at 04:08PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)