Kim Jong Un’s influential sister is promoted to North Korea’s top government body – her highest rank yet
- Kim Yo Jong, 34, was promoted to a position on the State Affairs Commission
- Nine members of the commission were fired including one vice-president
- Yo Jong is often seen in close proximity to her brother and is a key adviser to him
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential sister has been appointed to her highest rank yet at the top of the country’s government body.
Kim Yo Jong, 34, a key adviser to her brother, was promoted to a position on the State Affairs Commission, amid a raft of changes approved by the Supreme People’s Assembly, the rubber-stamp parliament.
No fewer than nine members of the commission were dismissed, including one of its vice-presidents, Pak Pong Ju, and diplomat Choe Son Hui, a rare senior woman in the North’s hierarchy who has played a key role in negotiations with the United States.
Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, has been promoted to a position on the State Affairs Commission
The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried portraits of the eight new appointees on Thursday, Kim Yo Jong standing out among them both for her youth and as the only woman.
She has often been seen in close proximity to her brother, with whom she went to school in Switzerland, including at his summits with then-US president Donald Trump and the South’s leader Moon Jae-in.
Her exact political role has long been the subject of speculation, as has the possibility that she might one day succeed her brother – a transition that would give the socially conservative North its first female leader.
Kim Yo Jong has long been among Kim Jong Un’s closest lieutenants and one of the most influential women in North Korea’s isolated regime
She has at times made vitriolic denunciations of Washington or Seoul in statements carried by state media, particularly ahead of the North blowing up a liaison office on its side of the border that the South had built and paid for.
Her relatively junior position as a vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party gave those declarations an element of ambiguity, and in some cases, she specifically said she was speaking in a personal capacity.
Her official rank has risen and fallen over time, but her new SAC position is by far the most senior post she has held.
Sister, adviser, and now top official: the latest promotion of Kim Yo Jong, sibling to North Korea’s leader, solidifies her position in Pyongyang’s circles of power, analysts say.
She has long been among Kim Jong Un’s closest lieutenants and one of the most influential women in the isolated regime, and on Thursday it was made official when state media announced she had been named to the State Affairs Commission (SAC), the country’s top government body.
It is a major step up from her relatively junior position as a vice department director in the ruling party, and is likely to heighten speculation that she could be a long-shot candidate to succeed her brother — whose health is a regular topic of rumour — in the event of his demise.
Kim Yo Jong was her brother’s envoy to the 2018 Winter Olympics
Such a transition would give the socially conservative North its first female leader, but analysts caution it would defy convention.
‘Kim Jong Un has raised Kim Yo Jong’s status,’ said Shin Beom-chul, a researcher at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Born in 1988, according to Seoul’s Ministry of Unification, Yo Jong is one of three children born to Kim’s predecessor Kim Jong Il and his third known partner, former dancer Ko Yong Hui.
She was educated in Switzerland alongside her brother and rose rapidly up the ranks once he inherited power after their father’s death in 2011.
Her existence was barely known to the wider world until his funeral, when she was seen on state television standing right behind Kim Jong Un, looking tearful and ashen-faced.
In contrast an inscrutable smile played on her lips when she rode down an escalator at Incheon airport as her brother’s envoy to the 2018 Winter Olympics, becoming the first member of the North’s ruling dynasty to set foot in the South since the Korean War.
Every detail of her visit was closely watched, from the clothes she wore to the bag she was carrying and even her handwriting.
In keeping with the secrecy shrouding North Korea’s leaders, it is not known whether she is married.
Kim Yo Jong has long been among Kim Jong Un’s closest lieutenants and one of the most influential women in North Korea’s isolated regime
More recently she has often been seen at her brother’s side, including at his summits with the South’s leader Moon Jae-in and then US president Donald Trump: on their 60-hour train journey to Hanoi for a meeting which then collapsed, she was seen bringing Kim an ashtray when he stepped off for a cigarette break.
She has also regularly issued statements in her own name making vitriolic denunciations of Washington or Seoul, particularly ahead of the North blowing up a liaison office on its side of the border last year that the South had built and paid for.
There was ‘no doubt’ that Kim Jong Un has an exceptionally close relationship with his sister, said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
‘Jong Un and Yo Jong spent much of their lonely childhood overseas together — I think this is when they developed something that is similar to comradeship, on top of sibling love,’ he told AFP.
Leadership has always been a family affair in the North and other than her brother, Kim Yo Jong is now the highest-ranked member of the ‘Paektu bloodline’ — a Northern term for the siblings’ grandfather Kim Il Sung and his descendants, who have led the nuclear-armed country since its foundation.
When Kim Jong Un disappeared from public view for several weeks last year it triggered feverish speculation over his health and who might succeed him.
Analysts say Kim Yo Jong’s portrayals in state media could be intended to bolster her credibility with the North Korean military and other hawks.
But when the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried portraits of the eight new SAC appointees on Thursday, she stood out among them both as the only woman and for her youth.
Given North Korea’s social and political structures, said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, it would be ‘very difficult’ for Kim to designate his sister as his successor, ‘even though she is a member of the Paektu bloodline’.
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