North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's disclosure of his daughter in recent public events was likely an attempt to show his people that one of his children would one day inherit his power in what would be the regime's third hereditary power transfer, South Korea's spy service told lawmakers recently. But how likely it is, what Kim Jong Un's Daughter will be the next ruthless leader of North Korea? 

Kim publicly took his daughter to three events in the past few months: a missile launch site, a photo session with weapons scientists, and a touring of a missile facility. State news media called her Kim's "most beloved child," sparking outside debate over whether she's being groomed as his heir apparent, though she's believed to be around 9 or 10 years old.

In a closed-door Parliamentary committee meeting, the National Intelligence Service said it believes that by taking his daughter to public places, Kim aims to show North Koreans his resolve to hold another round of hereditary power transition, Yoo Sang-bum, one of the lawmakers who attended the private NIS briefing, told reporters.

But the NIS said Ju Ae's public appearance-the first for any of Kim's children-doesn't necessarily mean that she herself will succeed Kim, Yoo added.

South Korean news outlets have reported that Kim has three children-born in 2010, 2013, and 2017-and that the first child is a son while the third is a daughter.

In its earlier assessment after the daughter's first appearance in November, the NIS told lawmakers that she is Kim's second child, named Ju Ae, and is about 10 years old. The agency told lawmakers at the time that her unveiling at the missile launch site appeared to reflect Kim's intentions to protect the security of North Korea's future generations in the face of a standoff with the United States.

Ju Ae apparently is the child whom retired NBA star Dennis Rodman saw during his trip to Pyongyang in 2013. After that visit, Rodman told the British newspaper the Guardian that he and Kim had a "relaxing time by the sea" with the leader's family and that he held Kim's baby daughter, Ju Ae.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) and his daughter at the site of a missile launch at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Nov. 18, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service)

Kim Jong Un, who recently turned 39, is the third generation of his family that has successively ruled North Korea since its 1948 foundation. He inherited power from his father Kim Jong Il upon his death in December 2011. Kim Jong Il took over when his father and state founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994.

The young Ju Ae's appearance came as a huge surprise to long-time North Korea watchers; both Kim Jong Un and Kim Jong Il made public debuts after they became adults. In 2010, Kim Jong Il marked the then-26-year-old Kim Jong Un-his third and youngest son-as his successor by putting him in a series of high-ranking posts.

Kim Jong Un's half-brother Kim Jong Nam, who was Kim Jong Il's eldest son, was once seen as a potential heir to the regime's dynastic leadership until he publicly fell from grace in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland. In 2017, Kim Jong Nam was killed at a Malaysian airport after two Asian women smeared the lethal nerve agent VX on his face. South Korea's spy service accused Kim Jong Un's regime of being behind the attack.

During Thursday's briefing, the NIS also said former North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who was involved in now-dormant nuclear diplomacy with the United States, has been purged, according to Youn Kun-young, another lawmaker who was at the meeting.

If true, it would be the highest-profile ouster by North Korea in recent years. In his earlier period of rule, Kim Jong Un engineered a spate of executions, purges, and dismissals of senior officials, including the killing of his powerful uncle, in an apparent effort to solidify his grip on power.

Youn quoted the NIS as saying it has not yet determined whether Ri Yong Ho was executed. Yoo said the spy agency didn't explain why Ri was purged.

Career diplomat Ri took part in the 2018-2019 nuclear summit with the United States over how to exchange North Korea's denuclearization steps for economic and other benefits. After the second summit between Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump collapsed in February 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam, Ri called a middle-of-the-night news conference in which he declared that Washington had wasted an opportunity that "may not come again."

South Korea's spy agency has a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea. Information about the secretive, authoritarian state is often impossible to confirm.

The NIS also told lawmakers that one of the five North Korean drones that recently violated South Korea's airspace might have photographed South Korea's presidential office in Seoul, Youn said. Earlier Thursday, South Korea's military said the North Korean drone entered the northern end of a no-fly zone set up around the presidential office.

South Korea's military has admitted it failed to shoot down any of the North Korean drones, which it said flew across the rivals' border for the first time in five years. The failure caused security concerns in South Korea.

The NIS said North Korea has about 500 drones, including a small number of self-exploding drones, according to Yoo.

Observers say North Korea has a history of sending surveillance drones into South Korea. A suspected North Korean drone found in South Korea in 2014 also contained photos of South Korea's presidential office, which was located at a different site in Seoul. Another suspected North Korea drone found crashed in 2017 was discovered to have photographed a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.

Will Kim Jong Un's sister reign till his children are old enough?

But there is one more likely successor in the case of Kim Jong Un's death: His sister, Kim Yo-jong.

Young, powerful, attractive and educated, Kim Yo-jong is one of her leader brother's closest confidants.

Not only is she constantly by his side curating his image, she has also played a key role in both the US-North Korea summit and the inter-Korean summit.

In 2014 North Korean state media identified Kim Yo-Jong as vice director of the KWP Propaganda and Agitation Department, and within a year she was the de facto head of that agency. Her father had held the same position under his own father, Kim Il-Sung, and it was unusual for a woman-even one who was a member of the Kim family-to reach such heights within the North Korean bureaucracy. 

Kim Yo-Jong worked to model Kim Jong-Un's personality cult on that of their grandfather, North Korea's "great leader" and "eternal president," as a means to solidify her brother's place in the Kim dynasty. Even Kim Jong-Un's clothing choices reflected this effort; in the first years of his rule, he emulated his father's appearance in Mao-collared jackets, but over time he adopted the Western-style suits favoured by Kim Il-Sung.

Although she wielded significant influence within the North Korean regime, Kim Yo-Jong remained relatively unknown to the outside world. 

This changed abruptly in February 2018 when she and a group of North Korean officials attended the 2018 Winter Olympics in P'yŏngch'ang, South Korea. The so-called "Olympic détente" marked a radical shift in tone in the ongoing nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula, and Kim Yo-Jong was seen as an unusual "soft power" tool for a country that was historically known for jingoistic sabre-rattling. 

She sat with South Korean Pres. Moon Jae-In in the presidential box at the opening ceremonies on February 9, and her presence marked the first visit to the South by a member of the North Korean ruling family. The following day, at a reception at South Korea's presidential residence, Kim Yo-Jong delivered a handwritten note from her brother that invited the South Korean president to meet with him in P'yŏngyang.

This apparent thaw in inter-Korean tensions led to a flurry of diplomatic activity, and Kim Yo-Jong played a visible role in the events that followed. She accompanied her brother to a pair of summits with U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, and she remained by his side in talks with Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping. Her regular contacts with Moon were formalized, and she became, in effect, the face of North Korean dialogue with the South. The breakdown of talks with Trump in 2019 resulted in her removal from the Politburo, the KWP's chief decision-making body, and for a time her stature was seemingly diminished. 

That changed in the spring of 2020, during a period when Kim Jong-Un was unusually absent from public life and questions were raised about his health. After the Moon government protested North Korean military drills, North Korean state media issued the first public comment directly attributed to Kim Yo-Jong, and its tone was belligerent. She compared South Korea to a "frightened dog barking," a taunt that echoed earlier statements about critics of the Kim regime, and both the message and its timing were interpreted by some as an attempt to demonstrate the stability and continuity of the Kim family. 

The following month she was reinstated in the Politburo, and, although rumours about Kim Jong-Un's possible death or incapacitation were dispelled, she retained her elevated public profile. 

In August 2020 South Korean intelligence officials proposed that Kim Jong-Un had ceded significant control of state policy to his sister, but the claim was impossible to prove, given the opaque nature of North Korea's government.

There is no doubt that Kim Yo-jong is one of the most powerful figures in North Korea. But does that mean she will succeed the leader if something bad happens to him? 

Yoshihiro Makino, former Seoul bureau chief of the Asahi Shimbun, thinks it is not impossible, but her roles so far ― particularly the ones she played during the Pyongyang-Washington summits in Singapore (2018) and Vietnam (2019) ― suggest that she is not the official heir apparent.

"If she is his successor, she would have not been assigned to tape-cutting or taking flowers given to her brother, because those are not the roles of a leader. In the case of Kim Jong-un, an heir apparent to Kim Jong-il, he always had an entourage, which he needed to make the charismatic image of the next leader," he wrote.
Yet, if there is any person who could claim the title of the regime's second in command, Kim Yo-jong is the one, said Makino, who described her as the person the North Korean leader trusts the most and one of the very few people who is allowed to talk about his health condition.

The day to confirm the assumption might come sooner than expected. Makino claimed Kim Jong-un has many chronic health problems. Citing sources, the author said German doctors performed surgery on him in Pyongyang in February 2020. If something serious occurs, the North looks for outside help, and it must have been the case that day, he said. Citing sources in Japan, he added, it is possible that Kim Jong-un still lives with incurable brain or heart problems.

A few months later at a major military parade held in Pyongyang, Kim Yo-jong did not stand next to her brother in an assistant role ― that given to Hyon Song-wol, the leader of the Moranbong Band and the Samjiyon Orchestra. Instead, she was sitting with other party cadres.
Makino said the role change could be part of efforts to build a new image as a politician for Kim Yo-jong, who has since been in charge of conveying Pyongyang's messages to Seoul and Washington.