‘Entrance runner’ to be North Korea’s subsequent supreme chief makes worldwide debut in China

By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean chief Kim Jong Un introduced his teenage daughter to Beijing this week in her first public outing abroad, fuelling additional hypothesis that she could also be his potential successor within the household’s dynastic rule over the nuclear-armed state.

Secretive North Korea has by no means revealed her title or age, however South Korean intelligence officers consider she is the daughter recognized as Ju Ae by former American basketball participant Dennis Rodman. Rodman hung out with Kim’s household in 2013 and described holding her as a child.

She was seen simply behind her father as they stepped off the armoured prepare they used to journey in a single day from Pyongyang to the Chinese language capital Beijing, the place Kim Jong Un attended an enormous navy parade on Wednesdy staged by China to commemorate Japan’s give up ending World Struggle Two within the Pacific.

“Proper now, Ju Ae is the entrance runner as subsequent supreme chief of North Korea,” mentioned Michael Madden, a North Korea management skilled on the U.S.-based Stimson Heart. “She is getting sensible protocol expertise which ought to serve her properly as North Korea’s subsequent chief or a core elite.”

It’s the first time she has accompanied Kim Jong Un outdoors North Korea – an expertise that neither her father nor highly effective aunt ever had, Madden mentioned.

“She is getting worthwhile expertise greeting and interacting with overseas management and different elites,” he mentioned.

Analysts mentioned there isn’t any proof Kim Jong Un ever accompanied his father, Kim Jong Il, on abroad journeys. Jong Il did make overseas journeys within the Nineteen Fifties together with his father, North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung.

North Korea’s tightly managed state media had revealed nothing about Kim Jong Un’s youngsters till Ju Ae was first proven to the world accompanying her father to the launch of an enormous intercontinental ballistic missile in 2022.

There’s nonetheless little recognized about different Kim youngsters.

South Korea’s intelligence company considers Ju Ae to be the almost definitely successor up to now, regardless of questions over whether or not she will be able to finally rise to the highest of the male-dominated dynasty.

Estimated to be about 13 years previous, Ju Ae has attended more and more high-profile occasions, together with her diplomatic debut at a Russian Embassy occasion in Could.

“The scope of her public appearances definitely has expanded from military-related websites to political and financial occasions over time,” mentioned Rachel Minyoung Lee, one other researcher with the Stimson Heart. “If that is a part of a succession marketing campaign, this will surely assist with that effort as it could be seen as Kim Ju Ae’s debut on the worldwide stage.”

Whereas it is untimely to say conclusively whether or not this go to means she is Kim Jong Un’s successor, it might nonetheless assist broaden her horizons, mentioned Lee, including that how the North Korean media covers Ju Ae in China would give higher perception.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Further reporting by Ju-min Park and Jack Kim; Enhancing by Michael Perry)