Kim Ju-ae, the teenage daughter of Kim Jong-un, has gone from absolute invisibility to the supreme leader of North Korea in just three years. He is the only known member of the fourth generation of the dynasty that since 1948 has ruled the most secretive country in the world with an iron fist. Pyongyang revealed its existence in 2022, but has not confirmed its name or age. There is no public biography, nor verifiable data about his life. The little that is known about her comes from images carefully selected by the North Korean regime and the interpretations that these have generated outside its borders. His growing prominence in key celebrations has made him the most intriguing figure within the North Korean power system.
On Thursday, the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) informed a group of South Korean legislators that it has found indications that the minor is close to being designated the future North Korean leader. Since January 2024, the NIS maintained that Ju-ae was “the most likely successor,” and that she was “in training” for an eventual replacement. The new evaluation, however, indicates that the process could have entered a much more concrete phase of the appointment, since, according to the NIS, there is evidence that could be interpreted as that Ju-ae has expressed her opinion on certain State policies and that, in practice, she is being treated as the number two of the regime.
Successions in North Korea, similar to those of a hereditary monarchy, are however an extremely opaque issue. The first time for Kim Jong-un, and his brothers Kim Yo-jong and Kim Jong-chul, was in 2009. Then in their twenties, none of the three was expressly named.
Ju-ae’s public appearance occurred in the setting most loaded with symbolism for Pyongyang: a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, in November 2022. The image of a girl accompanying Kim to the inspection of what was later confirmed to be at that time, the Hwasong-17, introduced an element until then absent from the official narrative: the confirmation that the North Korean leader had children.
The renowned South Korean academic Sung-Yoon Lee dedicates several passages of his book to Ju-ae The little sisterfocused on , whom he considers the most powerful woman in North Korea. Written in 2024 and recently translated into Spanish, Lee remembers Ju-ae’s first appearance, when he was approximately ten years old, “in an event as familiar as the launch of a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching any point in the continental United States.”
In the photos, the girl bore a striking facial resemblance to her mother, Ri Sol-ju, and also to her father. Eight days later, North Korea published more images, in which she was seen dressed and made up in the style of her mother.
That public presentation, the academic writes, led some observers to predict that she had already been chosen as his successor. Lee is not so clear: “In fact, it is possible that Kim brought his daughter to the show just to gloat over the democratically elected leaders in Washington and Seoul, subject to term limits. She symbolizes that his power, unlike theirs, is for life and will, in due time, pass to one of his children.”
The image was designed, he adds, to immediately associate lineage continuity with nuclear deterrence. “Kim must have thought that the juxtaposition of a powerful missile capable of reaching the United States with nuclear warheads and a healthy father-daughter relationship could sow in the subconscious of his adversaries a resigned acceptance of his nuclear weapons.”
However, Lee believes that even though Kim has decided that her daughter is her most suitable successor, it will be time before she grows up. At least until 2030, the sister Yo-jong will be “the sole heir to the throne” or perhaps the regent, until her nephews take power.
Information about Ju-ae is, like everything that happens with North Korea, very scarce. He was the one who revealed in 2013 that Kim had a daughter named Ju-ae and that he had allowed him to hold her in his arms during a visit to the country. But it is not even clear that this is his name.
State media began describing her in 2022 as the leader’s “most beloved” or “precious daughter,” but have never revealed her identity. According to evaluations from Seoul (unconfirmed), Ju-ae is the middle of three siblings, who would be around 16, 13 and 9 years old. In 2023, the official press took a step further by referring to it with the term old manwhich can be translated as “guide” or “guiding leader,” a name historically reserved for figures with ideological or political authority within the system.
Hyunseung Lee, a former member of the North Korean Workers’ Party and the elite, claims that his real given name could be “Ju-un,” a combination of the second character of the given names of each of his parents (Ri Sol-ju and Kim Jong-un), and that “Ju-ae” could simply be a pet name.
Most of Ju-ae’s early appearances were central to the regime’s legitimacy. In 2023, he attended the parade for the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army (the North Korean Army), one of the main military showcases on the political calendar, and the launch of the Hwasong-18, the country’s first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, which Pyongyang presented as a qualitative leap in its strategic capabilities. It has also been seen during presentations of new weapons systems and on visits to facilities linked to the military sector, which has consolidated its symbolic association with national security.
With the passage of time, its exposure has expanded to other areas. In 2025, she has been shown at events related to economic projects (such as the inauguration of several tourist complexes), and was even part of the delegation that .
That trip added a foreign policy dimension to his public projection and was interpreted as a message that transcended North Korean borders: when Kim Jong-il visited the Chinese capital in 2010, he did so with his son Kim Jong-un, who would be publicly promoted within the Party and the Army a few months later. Kim Jong-il took years to outline who would be his heir and for a long time it was considered that it would be his firstborn, Kim Jong-nam, who fell from grace in the early 2000s.
Ramón Pacheco-Pardo, professor of International Relations at King’s College London specializing in Korea, believes that Kim Jong-un seeks to repeat the succession model of his grandfather, and of the “lineage of Mount Paektu,” as his direct descendants call themselves. In 1974, when his son Kim Jong-il was in his early 30s, he was internally designated as the probable heir. In 1980, he was formally declared successor during the Sixth Party Congress. By then, he had accumulated enormous amounts of power. The media did not record a speech from him until 1992: “Glory to the heroic soldiers of the Korean People’s Army!” he exhorted the troops in a parade, already as supreme commander of the armed forces.
His final coronation as supreme leader would not come until 1994, after the death of his father. Sung-Yoon Lee summarizes well the outline of his years waiting for the throne: “After the end of the war in 1953, Kim Jong-il lived the pampered life of a prince and, later, from his early thirties, the authoritarian and unrivaled life of a designated heir.”
Not all observers believe the daughter will be the successor. “Although Ju-ae is honored and respected in every way, my personal opinion is that she is a distraction or a decoy,” says Chun In-bum, a retired former three-star South Korean general turned analyst. She believes this is the case, among other things, due to the “limited” social status of women in North Korean society, and the fact that Kim Jong-un has the capacity to have a “harem” of women, and, therefore, numerous children: he himself is the result of one of his father’s multiple partners. Nor does he consider that it is a country open to variations: “North Korea cannot change because it would mean the end of the Kim family,” he responds to EL PAÍS through messages.
Pacheco-Pardo adds, in any case, that Ju-ae’s aesthetics, disseminated through a propaganda system that takes care of each element, “reflects a certain elegance and modernity within North Korean parameters.” Her dresses and hairstyle, different from those of most teenagers her age, show “that she is part of the wealthiest class in the country.”
The Ninth Party Congress is scheduled for the end of the month, and the South Korean intelligence services have announced that they will closely monitor whether Ju-ae attends and, above all, whether she receives an official title or specific protocol treatment that reveals her designation as successor. Every detail can be loaded with symbolism. Although, as is often the case with the hermetic atomic nation, everything will most likely continue to be shrouded in mystery.
