The growing exposure of Kim Jong-un’s daughter fuels the debate: heir to the red throne or simple icon of the regime? Between Korean history and propaganda, nothing is ever as it seems
In North Korea every detail is a political message, and nothing is shown without a function. This is why, for over three years, the growing visibility of Kim Jong-un’s daughter has not been welcomed as a simple curiosity, but as a clue to be deciphered. His face next to his father during missile tests, visits to military sites, agricultural inspections, appearances at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun – the mausoleum of the embalmed bodies of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, the holiest place in North Korea – have fueled a debate that does not abate. The question is simple: is this girl already, in some way, part of the line of succession? Or is it an image constructed for the regime, an icon destined to support the narrative of power without ever truly entering its heart?
The recent article in Kunroja, the internal political magazine of the Workers’ Party, added fuel to the fire. He spoke openly — a very rare occurrence — about the need to address the issue of succession while the leader is still alive. A formulation that anywhere else would seem obvious, but which in North Korea is revolutionary, because the history of the Kim dynasty is based on a mythology of immediacy, on the sudden presentation of the heir, always at the last minute.
Iconography of power: the daughter as an image of the regime, between Dior, red mythology and Confucian rituals
In North Korea the power does not speak: appears. Politics is photography, leadership is choreography, dynasty is a living painting that updates every time Pyongyang releases an image. It is a tradition that has endured for three generations: the Kims do not govern only through decrees, but through a codified, ritual aesthetic that defines roles, hierarchies and destinies. In this scheme, Kim Jong-un’s daughter was never presented as a simple teenager, but as a figure under construction: a character who must exist first in the image and only much later, possibly, in political reality.
His visual transformation was as rapid as it was calculated. The little girl who appeared in November 2022 in a white down jacket — recognized by observers as surprisingly similar to a Dior model for children, without the regime ever confirming or denying — quickly became a different entity: black coats with severe lines, studied lengths, chromatic sobriety, no concessions to childhood or to a traditional feminine aesthetic. That down jacket, in a country where Western luxury is prohibited by sanctions, is not a detail of costume: it is a sign. Not of openness, but of appropriation. As if North Korean power meant that it can take the symbols of the global elite and bend them to its own narrative, transforming them into evidence of a dynastic prestige that answers to no one.
From that moment, the image of the girl entered the most rigid iconographic system of the country: that of the dynasty. There, the dress is a function of the role, the color is hierarchy, the posture is the message. There is no room for spontaneity nor for fashion in the Western sense: there is only the aesthetics of power. Kim Jong-un’s daughter is not raised to like, but to resist the gazeto embody a possible destiny. In some images she is even seen taking a half step in front of her father: an imperceptible gesture for those watching from afar, but enormous for those who know the Confucian hierarchical rigidity of the peninsula. Nobody precedes the leader. Nobody. If it happens, it means that someone has decided that it should happen.
It’s how North Korea builds its myths. Kim Il-sung was the “Sun”; Kim Jong-il, the “Young General”; Kim Jong-un, the “Prodigy Leader”. Now, testimonies from defectors cited by scholars speak of a new narrative that describes the girl as a “computer genius”, a brilliant mind linked to the technological and military development of the country. It is not yet a succession. It’s not a definition yet. It’s a seed. And when a seed enters North Korean propaganda, it is rarely abandoned.
Possible heir, probable icon
Lee Sung-yoon, of the Sejong Institute, is convinced that the process has already begun: frequency, posture, places — everything suggests a dynastic path. Yang Uk, of the Asan Institute, disagrees: he recalls that Kim Jong-un only appeared for the first time in 2010, a year before his father’s death. Showing a possible heir so soon, he says, would be against the logic of the regime, which avoids building figures that are too recognizable so as not to weaken them politically.
The gender issue weighs heavily: North Korea remains a militarized, patriarchal society, and leadership has historically been associated with the cruelty necessary to govern. Kim Jong-un demonstrated this by eliminating his uncle Jang Song-thaek and allowing his half-brother Kim Jong-nam to be assassinated abroad: gestures that no one today imagines associated with the idea of a young heir.
Between mysteries, invisible children and missing names
Not even her name is certain: “Kim Ju-ae” is the Western version, derived from the uncertain memory of Dennis Rodman, who does not speak Korean. In the state media she is “the leader’s beloved daughter”, nothing more. Even the question of siblings remains nebulous: perhaps there is a son, perhaps not. In North Korea, the absence of information is an advanced form of power management.
The only certainty: succession has entered the political discourse
The crucial point is precisely this. The regime has declared succession a “central task” while the leader is still alive. In North Korea, such a statement is not a detail: it is a phase statement. Whether the girl is the heiress or just an icon, her image is not accidental. It is a construction, a fragment of the future, a possible beginning. And in a country where history doesn’t announce itself: it shows itself, that’s already a lot.
