On Saturday, North Korea’s official news agency described leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter as a “super guide,” a term that analysts confirmed is usually reserved for senior leaders, and indicates that she may succeed her father in the future.
In the English and Korean versions of a report Published by the Korean Central News Agency about a visit made by Kim and his daughter to a farm, the dual form was used for this honorific expression, so that it appears to apply to both of them.
The agency said, on Saturday, in a report accompanied by a photo of Kim and his daughter, “The two Grand Leaders, accompanied by cadres from the party, government and army, toured the farm.”
Analysts said that this is the first time that North Korean official media has described Kim’s daughter in this way. Her name had not previously been mentioned in Pyongyang media, but South Korean intelligence identified her as Ju Ae.
Yang Moo-jin, head of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP: “This is the first time that Kim Joo-ae has been promoted to the rank of leader.”
Cheong Seong Chang, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute, said that the North Korean term “hyangdo,” which means guide, is only reserved for “senior leaders or successors” in the regime.
Cheung added, “Raising Kim Jo Ae to this position strongly indicates that she will succeed Kim Jong Un as the next leader of North Korea.”
Kim Jong Un, the grandson of North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung and who belongs to the third generation of the Kim family that leads the country, married Ri Sol Ju in 2009, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency.
In 2022, Jo Ae was first introduced to the world through state media in Pyongyang, when she accompanied her father to attend the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
She has since been seen at several official events alongside her father, including training exercises, a military parade, and a visit to a weapons factory and a chicken farm.
In a photo published by Pyongyang on Saturday, Jo Ae was seen using binoculars to monitor recent paratrooper training, standing next to her father and senior military officials.
Before 2022, the only confirmation of its existence came from former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who visited North Korea in 2013 and said he met Kim’s young daughter, Jo Ae.
Seoul had initially reported that Kim and his wife, Ri, had given birth to their first child, a boy, in 2010, and that Jo Ae was their second child.
But South Korea’s Unification Minister said last year that the government was “unable to confirm” the existence of Kim’s son.
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