SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s spy agency said its assessment has moved to its strongest position yet that Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter should be seen as his heir, according to lawmakers briefed by the National Intelligence Service. During a closed-door meeting with the National Assembly on Monday, NIS director Lee Jong-seok told lawmakers that it is “fair to view” the girl as Kim Jong Un’s successor, the lawmakers said.
The shift came as lawmakers asked the NIS for details about the girl’s political standing amid outside speculation that she is being groomed to extend the Kim family’s rule into a fourth generation. South Korea’s spy agency has tracked the girl’s rising public profile since at least late 2022, when state media began presenting her alongside Kim Jong Un at high-profile events.
In the briefing, Lee also addressed why Kim Jong Un and the girl have appeared together at events that draw attention to military credentials. Lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun said Lee told lawmakers that North Korea appears to have organized such events to build up her military standing and to “reduce skepticism about a woman successor,” based on what the NIS described as “reliable intelligence.”
Lawmakers also pressed Lee on Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong, who has long been regarded as the North’s No. 2 figure. Lee told lawmakers that Kim Yo Jong “has no substantial powers,” according to Lee Seong Kweun’s account of the briefing.
The NIS’s latest assessment marks a more definitive step than earlier statements. In early 2024, the agency described the girl as Kim Jong Un’s likely heir, and in February this year it said it believed she was close to being designated as the country’s future leader. This latest briefing follows MSI previously reported on Feb. 13 that South Korea said Kim Jong Un’s daughter could soon be designated heir ….
Some observers, however, questioned the NIS’s conclusion. They pointed to North Korea’s extremely male-centered political system and argued that Kim Jong Un, 42, is too young to name a successor, a development they said could weaken his grip on power.
The girl has been referred to in North Korean state media as Kim Jong Un’s “most beloved” or “respected” child, but South Korea and outside accounts have differed on personal details. The girl has been reported as Kim Ju Ae and aged about 13, though North Korean state media has not released such information, and the reported name is based on a description by former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who recalled holding Kim Jong Un’s baby daughter during a trip to Pyongyang in 2013.
Recent public appearances that analysts have cited include Kim Jong Un supervising the girl as she drove a tank during army training, and both firing pistols during a visit to a light munitions factory. In Monday’s briefing, lawmakers said Park Sunwon, another lawmaker who attended, made similar comments about the NIS assessment tied to those events.
South Korea’s claims come against a long-running pattern of succession in North Korea’s ruling family. North Korea was founded in 1948, and the country has been ruled successively by male members of the Kim family: Kim Jong Un took over after Kim Jong Il’s death in late 2011, and Kim Jong Il inherited power after Kim Il Sung died in 1994.
The NIS’s strongest assessment and the lawmakers’ descriptions of what it said underscore how the North’s internal power dynamics are closely watched in Seoul, where intelligence assessments about succession can shape planning and diplomacy even when the underlying decision-making in Pyongyang remains opaque.