Who is Kim Yo Jong?

Kim Jong Un is rumored to be in a coma and speculation swirls again about his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, temporarily shifting to a ruling position for North Korea.

Kim Yo Jong is Kim Jong Il’s youngest child

Kim Jong Un is the youngest of three sons to Kim Jong Il. The eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, was assassinated in 2017 and middle son Kim Jong Chol was rejected as heir to rule North Korea, rumored to be due to his effeminate personality.

Kim Jong Un also has two sisters: older sister Kim Sul Song, born in 1974, and younger sister Kim Yo Jong, born in 1989. Kim Sul Song was thought to be Kim Jong Il’s favorite child and was the likeliest, at one point, to take control in Kim Jong Un’s absence. But Sul Song’s name has not been seen much in recent years. Yo Jong may have also found favor in her father’s eyes according to the first hand accounts of former Kim family sushi chef who goes by pen name Kenji Fujimoto. Per Fujimoto, Kim Jong Il often referred to Yo Jong as "Princess Yo Jong"

Kim Yo Jong’s rise to power

Kim Yo Jong was appointed as Vice-Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD) in 2014 where she was responsible for crafting her brother's public image and messages. In 2017, a year before she stepped into the international spotlight, Kim Yo Jong also joined the North’s Politburo, officially called the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK, as an alternate member.

Her public debut came during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, when Kim Yo Jong served as a special envoy between the divided Koreas and met with the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in. An envoy’s role is similar to an ambassador, often tasked with resolving conflict between nations but Kim Yo Jong has been very vocal of her disdain for the South. Kim Yo Jong recently publicly threatened to destroy an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea. The building was obliterated a few days later.

Kim Yo Jong (far right) at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Kim Yo Jong today

Kim Yo Jong is 32 years old and currently serves as the First Vice Director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). Kim Jong Un is the Chairman of the WPK and the Central Committee is the main policymaking body of the WPK. If Kim Jong Un is indeed incapacitated, she is assumed to be the most likely temporary successor until one of Kim Jong Un’s sons are old enough to rule North Korea. Because North Korean leadership is fundamentally patriarchal, Kim Yo Jong’s rule would not be permanent.

North Korea under Kim Yo Jong

Since Kim Yo Jong’s role would not be permanent, she would most likely uphold the agenda and work of her brother, Kim Jong Un and, if her brother dies, would carry the core ideologies of the regime into the next generation until Kim Jong Un’s successor can take leadership. This is the best case scenario for North Korea. What remains unclear is a potential power struggle between Kim Jong Un’s heirs and his sister. There simply isn’t enough information to know which way this will go.

Kim Yo Jong followed her brother’s steps of foreign education and is thought to have shared an apartment with Kim Jong Un in Switzerland. There are speculations that they were very close and thus, her approach to ruling North Korea may be similar to her big brother.

It is not unlikely that Yo Jong will push beyond her brother’s dictatorial ways. Lee Seong-hyon, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, a research center in South Korea said  “As she leads the offense against South Korea like a general, it silences those old hard-liners in the Politburo who may think she cannot be the leader.” We believe she may overcompensate in the North patriarchal system by ruling with even more vitriol.

(The New York Post recently wrote something similar about a future under Kim Yo Jong here )

North Korean defectors
In a public statement issued on June 4, 2020, Kim Yo Jong portrayed North Korean defectors as, “Human scum little short of wild animals who betrayed their own homeland,” and described their campaigns against North Korea as “acts to imitate men” “bark[ing]... where they should not.” Defecting from North Korea is an act of treason and punishable by hard labor, torture and oftentimes death. Kim Yo Jong’s public statement is no surprise and should she take control of North Korea, we expect the same severity of punishment to continue for defectors who are caught and returned to the North.