North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made a rare trip to Beijing accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, in what analysts describe as her most significant step yet into the international spotlight.
Images released by state media showed the teenager by her father’s side at a large military parade on Wednesday, September 3, marking her first official appearance abroad. Ju Ae has become a familiar figure at North Korean weapons tests, and experts believe her presence in Beijing signals her growing role in succession plans for the ruling Kim dynasty.
Her identity was first hinted at in 2013 when former NBA star Dennis Rodman, visiting Pyongyang, revealed Kim had introduced him to his wife Ri Sol Ju and a baby girl, saying: “that’s my daughter.” She was formally presented to the North Korean public nearly a decade later at the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Since then, she has been given unusual prominence for someone her age. State media have called her “the beloved child” and “the esteemed child,” and broadcasts have shown senior officials bowing to her. At public events she has walked ahead of her aunt Kim Yo Jong and her mother, while linking arms with her father, whispering to him, and even entering cars before him.
Observers also note her appearances in luxury items such as Gucci sunglasses and Cartier watches, while at times adopting her father’s trademark style with dark glasses and matching leather jackets.
Her trip to China represents “a formal debut on foreign soil,” said Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “With the transition from appearances on a domestic stage to an international one, this may be the final gateway toward succession.”
Analysts argue that Pyongyang is deliberately shaping her image as heir. “This is not a simple family trip but in effect a ‘debut as successor’,” Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University told AFP. He drew parallels with Kim Jong Il, who met Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s father in Beijing in 1983 as part of his own grooming for power.
In 2024, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service assessed for the first time that Ju Ae was the most likely successor. “Based on an overall analysis of Kim Ju Ae’s public appearances and the level of protocol accorded to her since her emergence, she currently appears to be the most likely successor,” said then-agency chief Cho Tae-yong.
Analysts point to further symbolic signs, including a military parade in which her white horse followed only Kim Jong Un’s, stamps featuring her alongside her father, and images of senior officials kneeling before her.
“North Korea has also issued stamps featuring the pair, and high officials kneeling before her are also proof,” said Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
