Eight of 11 Defectors Say Kim Jong Un's Daughter Is His Heir

Eight of the 11 defectors interviewed by The Associated Press believe Kim Jong Un's teenage daughter is being prepared to lead North Korea one day, according to a report carried by NPR. The other three disagreed, pointing to the country's strongly male-dominated culture. South Korea's spy agency has also said she is the likely heir.

The AP spoke with nearly a dozen defectors who still have contacts in North Korea or watched earlier power transfers, along with several experts. Here is what they said.

Who is the girl, and why is she in the spotlight?

Little is known about her. She is reportedly about 13 and named Kim Ju Ae. Since late 2022, she has appeared in public dozens of times, always alongside her father at major events such as weapons tests and military parades. State media has described her as Kim's most beloved and respected child. Images have shown an elderly general kneeling before her and her standing in front of her father.

Why do most defectors think she is the heir?

Tae Yongho, a former minister at North Korea's Embassy in London who defected to South Korea in 2016, said senior officials treat her with protocol reserved for a successor rather than for a leader's daughter. He said it mirrors the treatment Kim Jong Un received when he accompanied his own father as heir.

Two defectors who keep in touch with people in the North described similar views there. Kang Mi-Jin, who runs a company analyzing North Korea's economy, said contacts reached by smuggled phones believe the girl is in line to take over. Jung Gwang-il, who smuggles outside information into the country, said North Koreans he meets in Chinese border towns share that belief.

What are the doubts about a woman leading the country?

Much of the skepticism comes from her gender. Women remain sharply underrepresented in senior posts: only one of 17 department directors in the ruling Workers' Party is a woman, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. She is Kim Yo Jong, the leader's influential younger sister. South Korean officials also believe Kim has a younger child whose gender has not been confirmed.

Kim Jeong-Ah, a former North Korean army officer who resettled in South Korea in 2009, said her contacts consider it nonsensical to revere a young girl as supreme leader. Lee Si-young, who heads Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio, said some older contacts dislike the idea of a woman in charge. Still, she argued that gender hardly matters because Kim family members are seen as “like gods reigning over humans.”

How does this compare with earlier successions?

North Korea was founded in 1948 and has been ruled by three generations of the Kim family. There was no known public resistance when Kim Il Sung passed power to his son Kim Jong Il in 1994, or when Kim Jong Il passed it to Kim Jong Un in 2011.

The first transition was well prepared: Kim Jong Il was 52 and had worked beside his father for two decades. The second was less certain, since outsiders saw Kim Jong Un, then 27, as too young and inexperienced. He quickly tightened his grip through high-profile executions and purges. Observers told the AP that Kim, now 42, is likely to name one of his children to extend the family's rule, and that they expect little resistance at home. South Korea's spy agency recently assessed that he is extremely obese and at high risk of cardiovascular disease, but shows no other signs of poor health.

What does this mean for North Koreans?

For the country's 26 million people, the question of who comes next carries high stakes. The next leader will govern an impoverished, nuclear-armed nation whose citizens have little political freedom, live under strict state surveillance and are cut off from much of the outside world. North Koreans have no say in the choice.

Analysts and defectors told the AP that people will accept another dynastic handover, at least in public. Ahn Chan-il, a defector who heads the World Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Koreans will go along with a hereditary succession as something they are expected to accept.

The prospect of a fourth generation in power was a reason one family left. Kim Yumi, 32, fled by boat to South Korea three years ago with her husband and children, after pandemic restrictions ruined their fishing business. She said she felt uneasy whenever state television showed Kim with his young daughter, because it suggested a hereditary transfer was being set up. She said she and her husband wanted their children to grow up free of a fourth-generation dictatorship.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by ABC News, NPR