Vicky Arias, FISM News
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently made two public appearances with his daughter, Ju Ae, fueling speculation that she is being readied to eventually take her father’s place.
Information is shrouded in the intensely secretive communist state. However, Ju Ae is reported to be the leader’s second child and is between 9 and 10 years old. She was recently given the title “most beloved” or “precious” child of her father.
Ju Ae made her first-ever public appearance on November 19 in state-run media photos that depicted her observing an intercontinental ballistic missile launch (ICBM) with her mother and father.
North Korea’s state-run news outlet, Korean Central News Agency, said that Kim and his daughter posed for pictures along with scientists who were involved in launching the weapon.
“This is certainly striking,” Ankit Panda, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, according to Fox News. “The photograph of Kim Ju Ae standing alongside her father while being celebrated by technicians and scientists involved in the latest ICBM launch would support the idea that this is the start of her being positioned as a potential successor.”
That missile launch landed near Japan on November 18 and demonstrated North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities. The Associated Press explained that it “showed a potential ability to launch nuclear strikes on all of the U.S. mainland.”
According to Reuters, “Kim Jong Un said [North Korea] intends to have the world’s most powerful nuclear force.”
Some view Kim’s bringing his daughter to the missile launch as a statement that he has no plans to dismantle his weapons-building program.
“Both of [Ju Ae’s] initial public appearances have been in the context of strategic nuclear weapons — the crown jewels of North Korea’s national defense capabilities. That doesn’t strike me as coincidental,” Panda said, according to NBC News.
In 2020, rumors swirled about the North Korean leader’s health, as claims were made that he had undergone heart surgery and was gravely ill, though North Korean officials denied the veracity of the claims
Kim Jong Un hasn’t officially chosen a successor and many thought those loyal to him would take over leadership responsibilities until his children were old enough to take over the role. North Korea is profoundly male-dominated, leading some to wonder if Kim’s daughter would, indeed, be chosen.