When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stepped off his armoured green train in Beijing on 2 September, a young girl dressed in black was spotted behind him, smiling politely at the Chinese officials.
Many say the girl was Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter, perhaps making her first public outing abroad. She has made various public appearances over the years, mostly at military-related events, but her presence in Beijing fuelled further speculation that she may be his potential successor in the family’s dynastic rule over the nuclear-armed state.
Mystery around the girl
North Korea has never revealed her name or age, but South Korean intelligence officials believed she is the daughter identified as Ju Ae by former American basketball player Dennis Rodman. Rodman spent time with Kim’s family in 2013 and described holding her as a baby.
“I held their baby Ju Ae and spoke with (Kim’s wife) as well,” Rodman had told Guardian then.
Kim Jong Un was in Beijing to attend Wednesday’s parade, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping flaunted his military forces. But the girl was nowhere to be seen on Wednesday as her father strode down the red carpet at Tiananmen Square ahead of Xi’s military parade.
“Right now, Ju Ae is the frontrunner as next supreme leader of North Korea,” Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the US-based Stimson Centre, was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters. “She is getting practical protocol experience which should serve her well as North Korea’s next leader or a core elite.”
Madden said it is the first time she has accompanied Kim Jong Un outside North Korea—an experience that neither her father nor powerful aunt ever had.
Hereditary dictatorship
North Korea has been ruled as a hereditary dictatorship since the country was founded in 1948 by Kim Il Sung. His son, Kim Jong Il, took over after his father’s death in 1994, and Kim Jong Un took power 17 years later when Kim Jong Il died.
With dynasts ruling the country since, Kim’s daughter’s first international public appearance sparked debate about whether she could be groomed as a successor.
Analysts said there is no evidence Kim Jong Un ever accompanied his father, Kim Jong Il, on overseas trips. Jong Il did make foreign trips in the 1950s with his father, North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung.
North Korea’s tightly controlled state media had revealed nothing about Kim Jong Un’s children until Ju Ae was first shown to the world accompanying her father to the launch of a massive intercontinental ballistic missile in 2022.
There is still little known about the other Kim children.
South Korea’s intelligence agency considers Ju Ae to be the most likely successor so far, despite questions over whether she can ultimately rise to the top of the male-dominated dynasty.
Not much is known about Kim’s daughter, whose first public appearance in 2022 confirmed her existence, after years of speculation. Even her exact age or birth year is not known. However, it is widely estimated she’s now a preteen or early teen, largely based on Rodman’s statements.
Ju Ae, estimated to be about 13 years old, has attended increasingly high-profile events, including her diplomatic debut at a Russian Embassy event in May.
“The scope of her public appearances certainly has expanded from military-related sites to political and economic events over the years,” Rachel Minyoung Lee, another researcher with the Stimson Centre, said in the Reuters report.
Right now, Ju Ae is the frontrunner as next supreme leader of North Korea.
“If this is part of a succession campaign, this would certainly help with that effort as it would be seen as Kim Ju Ae’s debut on the international stage.”
(With Reuters and CNN inputs)
