North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is grooming his teenage daughter to succeed him as leader of the nuclear-armed country, Seoul’s intelligence service told South Korean lawmakers on Monday.
The girl, Kim Ju-ae, whose age has not been confirmed, has been seen alongside her father on several occasions since 2022, raising speculation that she could one day succeed him as the fourth generation leader of the world’s only communist dynasty.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) believes she has been chosen to be the successor, Rep. Lee Seong-kweun told reporters after the NIS briefing.
“Pyongyang is clearly grooming Kim Ju-ae as an heir, indicating that she is the most likely person to succeed” the current leader, Lee added.
“Overweight”
The NIS also told lawmakers that Kim Jong-un was “significantly overweight,” weighing “approximately 140 kg,” which puts him at “high risk for heart disease.”
Mr. Kim, a known cigarette smoker, was believed to have had symptoms of high blood pressure and diabetes since he was just past the age of 30, Mr. Lee said, citing the National Intelligence Service.
According to the NIS’s explanation to South Korean lawmakers, Pyongyang appears to be adjusting the level of Kim Ju-ae’s public exposure to monitor how North Koreans react to his potential role in succeeding the current leader.
More than half of his trips with his father were related to military activities such as supervising maneuvers, the NIS told lawmakers.
In March, Kim Ju-ae was given the highly honorary title of “hyangdo” in Korean (“great advisor”) by state media, suggesting she could succeed Kim Jong-un.
“Noting the use of the term ““hyangdo”“, reserved for a leader or his successor, the NIS believes that the succession plan is taking shape to some extent,” another lawmaker, Park Sun-won, told reporters.
Another child?
However, the National Intelligence Service has not ruled out the possibility that another child could emerge as an alternative in the succession plan, Park said, since North Korea has not made any announcement on succession.
Before 2022, the only confirmation of Kim Ju-ae’s existence came from former American NBA star Dennis Rodman, who claimed to have met a daughter of the leader named Ju-ae during a visit to North Korea in 2013.
Seoul had initially said the North Korean leader and his wife Ri Sol Ju, a former pop star who reportedly married him in 2009, had welcomed their first child, a boy, in 2010, and that Ju-ae was their second.
But in 2023, South Korea’s unification minister said the government was “unable to confirm the existence” of Kim Jong-un’s son.
Kim Jong-un, probably born in 1983 or 1984, was not yet 30 when he succeeded his father Kim Jong-il in December 2011. His sister Kim Yo Jong is also considered an influential figure.
North Korea has been dominated since 1948 by the Kim dynasty, also known as the “Paektu lineage”, named after a sacred mountain which is the legendary cradle of the Korean people and where, according to North Korean propaganda, Kim Jong-il was born, having succeeded his father Kim Il Sung.