North Korea’s Kim Ju Ae ‘likely successor’: Seoul

AFP | Seoul

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South Korea’s spy agency said yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter, Ju Ae, who recently accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognised successor.

The teenager drew global attention earlier this month when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested Ju Ae has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader.

South Korea’s spy agency “assesses that she (Ju Ae) secured sufficient ‘revolutionary narrative’ needed to strengthen her position as a likely successor,” following her China trip, lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters after being briefed by the agency.

“The agency perceives Kim Ju Ae as the recognised heir and sees her participation in the China visit as part of completing that succession narrative.”

Seoul’s spy agency said Ju Ae’s status was evident in state media photos and a special documentary showing her accompanying Kim Jong Un in China.

North Korea’s state media released a photo of her inside the country’s bulletproof train alongside her father and other officials as they returned from Beijing.

Seoul’s spy agency said it understood that Kim and his daughter “stayed at the North Korean embassy” while in China, where items and even waste were “transported by special aircraft”.