North Korea has unveiled the little-known daughter of its leader Kim Jong-un at a missile launch site – attracting keen attention on a fourth-generation member of the dynastic family that has ruled North Korea for more than seven decades.
The North’s state media said on Saturday Kim had observed the launch of its new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with his wife Ri Sol Ju, their “beloved daughter” and other officials the previous day.
Kim said the launch of the Hwasong-17 missile – the North’s longest-range, nuclear-capable missile – proved he has a reliable weapon to contain US-led military threats.
The main Rodong Sinmun newspaper also released a slew of photos of Kim watching a soaring missile from a distance with his daughter. Other photographs showed her with her hair pulled back, wearing a white coat and a pair of red shoes as she walked in hand-in-hand with her father by a huge missile atop a launch truck.
It is the first time for North Korea’s state media to mention the daughter or publicise her photographs. The Korean Central News Agency did not provide further details, such as her name or age.
Much of Kim’s private life is still unknown. But South Korean media reported Kim married Ri, a former singer, in 2009, and that the couple have three children who were born in 2010, 2013 and 2017.
It was not known which child Kim took to the launch site. But in 2013, after a trip to Pyongyang, retired NBA star Dennis Rodman told The Guardian 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.
The identities of Kim’s children are a source of strong outside interest as the 38-year-old ruler has not publicly anointed an heir apparent.
When he disappeared from public eye for an extended period in 2020 amid unconfirmed rumours about health conditions, global media frenzy flared over who was next in line to run an impoverished yet nuclear-armed country. Many observers said at the time Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, would step in and run the country if her brother was incapacitated.
The Kim family has governed North Korea with a strong personality following built around key family members since Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, founded the country in 1948. The family’s so-called Paektu bloodline, named after the North’s most sacred mountain, allows only direct family members to rule the country.
“It’s much too soon to infer anything about succession within the Kim regime,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “However, publicly including his wife and daughter in what Kim claims as a historically successful missile test associates the family business of ruling North Korea with the nation’s missile programmes.
“This may be an attempt to compensate for how few economic accomplishments Kim has to support his domestic legitimacy,” Easley said.
Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said if Kim continues to take this daughter to key public events, that could signal she will become his successor.
“Under North Korea’s system, the children of Kim Jong-un would have the status of a prince or princess, like in a dynasty. As the Rodong Sinmnum newspaper publicised the photo of the daughter, who took after Kim Jong-un and Ri Sol Ju so much … she has no choice but to live special lives,” Cheong said.
Other observers say Kim taking his family to a missile test site indicated he was confident in the weapon’s successful launch, or that he might have tried to burnish an image as a normal leader including his family in his affairs.
