North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made his second public appearance with his daughter Ju Ae. State media released new images of the father and daughter alongside a group of scientists and officials involved in the launch of the Hwasong-17 ICBM earlier this month.
The girl, aged about 10, is defined with honorific terms as the “most loved” or “precious”, in a “crescendo of state” compared to her previous description as “beloved child” in the dispatch of 19 November, fueling the debate and speculation about his future as a possible heir.
Kim Jong-un and Kim Ju Ae
Black leather jacket for him, black coat with fur collar for her. Kim and her daughter appear close-knit: they hold hands or arm in arm exchanging knowing glances.
In the shots released on Sunday by KCNA, the mother of the child, Ri Sol Ju, never appears, unlike last time. Also on this occasion, the young Ju Ae interacts with some soldiers, she talks to her father. She doesn’t just observe, but she “is an integral part of the action”. Here she is posing with Kim Jong-un and a group of soldiers, while behind them stands the most powerful missile in the country’s supply.
Kim Jong-un and daughter
But it is above all a shot – the one in which the girl appears standing next to her father, while she is being celebrated by technicians and scientists involved in the latest launch of the ICBM, with the cry of “Urrah” – which suggests a potential future for her successor to the leadership of North Korea.
“It’s not a coincidence,” says Ankit Panda, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Not only does the state media remark on her father’s love for her – who is supposed to be the second child – but both of her only two appearances have taken place in public and in the context of strategic nuclear weapons, the pinnacle of Korea’s defense capabilities of the North”, claims the expert.
Kim Jong-un and daughter
According to South Korean media, Kim has three children, born in 2010, 2013 and 2017. The first is likely a boy. Ju Ae is the second child and likely the same child NBA star Dennis Rodman saw during his 2013 trip to Pyongyang. After that visit, Rodman told the British Guardian newspaper that he and Kim had spent a “relaxing time by the sea” with the leader’s family and that he had been holding his youngest daughter, named Ju Ae.
This raises speculation as to why the eldest son does not appear alongside the leader, given the patriarchal and deeply male-dominated nature of North Korean society. It is also true, however, that if ever an attempt had been made to identify a possible heir to the dictator, the choice had fallen on another woman in the past: Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, very active in the country’s politics and considered the number 2 of the regime.
According to Soo Kim, an analyst at the California-based RAND Corporation, it is still too early to draw any conclusions. “Kim Jong-un might just think that his daughter’s introduction is an effective distraction at a difficult time when he is consolidating the country as a credible nuclear threat with a record number of tests.” Also, he may want to get across the message that “nuclear weapons are the only guarantee for the country’s future.”
According to analyst Cheong Seong-Chang of the Sejong Institute in South Korea, by bringing his daughter to official events, Kim Jong-un wants to guarantee the girl “public loyalty” of the apparatus.
Kim Jong-un and daughter
In the event attended by Ju Ae, the North Korean leader not only praised the loyalty and efficiency of the personnel involved in the production and launch of the missile, a carrier capable of reaching even the United States, but also asked the scientists, technicians and defense industry workers “a fight to the death to expand and strengthen the country’s nuclear deterrence capability at an exceptional speed”. He then bestowed a flurry of promotions and named launch vehicle No. 1 “Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Holder of the Gold Star Medal and the Order of the National Flag First Class.” 321 from which the missile took off.
