North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has given his young daughter a leadership role in his country’s Missile Administration, which oversees Pyongyang’s nuclear forces, South Korean media cited a senior government official as saying.
Why It Matters
The child, long thought to be named Ju Ae and believed to be about 13 years old, has increasingly accompanied the supreme leader on public appearances including at missile test launch sites. This has fueled speculation she is the favorite to succeed Kim as supreme leader, in what would mark a historic departure from a dynastic tradition that has favored male heirs.
The future direction of the Kim dynasty will help shape security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula, where relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have sharply deteriorated in recent years amid Kim’s expanding nuclear and ballistic missile programs and former South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s hardline approach.
What To Know
Ju Ae has been elevated to the position of “Missile General Bureau chief,” a high-level official in the South Korean government official told the Chosun Daily on Sunday, citing intelligence sources.
The move was intended to prepare her to assume command of the Korean People’s Army, and she is reportedly already being briefed by generals and in some cases even giving out orders, rather than Jang Chang Ha, who has served as director of the missile bureau since late 2023.
The report follows the South Korean National Intelligence Service’s strongest assessment to date that Ju Ae is the heir apparent, adding that officials will watch closely to see whether she takes on a prominent role at the ongoing Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party.
The rubber-stamp Congress, which got underway Thursday, is an event that will set the agenda for the coming five-year period. Kim Jong Un was reelected as secretary general of the Workers’ Party on Sunday, a position he has held for 15 years.
What People Are Saying
The Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea said in its resolution to re-elect Kim: “The current Congress fully supported and approved the polite proposal for re-electing Comrade Kim Jong Un as the top leader of the WPK.
“He has energetically led the work to turn the Korean People’s Army, the pivot of national defence and pillar of safeguarding peace, into an elite and powerful army and thus built the revolutionary armed forces capable of coping with any threat of aggression on their own initiative and fully prepared for any form of war.”
What Happens Next
Analysts have cautioned the succession picture remains fluid and could shift depending on internal power dynamics, including the influence of Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Yo Jong.
