The ascent of Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean president

Audio 03:30

By: Christophe Paget Follow

Last month, Kim Yo-jong had Kaesong's liaison office between the two Koreas destroyed. Beyond the simple provocation, this gesture shows above all the importance that has taken in recent years, and even more in recent months, the sister of President Kim Jong-un inside and outside his country. . We even go so far as to speak of her to succeed the North Korean dictator.

Publicity

Friday, February 9, 2018, the cameras crackle around a smiling young woman in her thirties: Kim Yo-jong arrives in South Korea. The moment is historic, since it is the first time since the Korean War (1950-1953) that a member of the Kim dynasty has set foot south of the 38th parallel, and more precisely in Seoul since the conquest of the capital in 1950 by the forces of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current North Korean president and his sister.

The messenger

This time, there is no question of conflict, on the contrary: Kim Yo-jong came to attend the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Everyone's eyes are on her. And that was the intention of Kim Jong-un, who had not come in person for political and security reasons: “  At the time, while negotiations with South Korea and the United States started, North Korea wanted to send an extremely strong message to Seoul and the rest of the world,  "said Antoine Bondaz, director of the Korea Program at the foundation for strategic research:"  Kim Yo-jong's sending was this message Kim Jong-un's determination to engage the international community and negotiate with it, especially with the United States  . ” 

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We will then see Kim Yo-jong at the summits of Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019 with the Americans, accompanying his brother - for whom she is a definite asset, since he uses it as a "  sounding board  " for his communication official abroad: "  When Kim Yo-jong speaks, his words are widely relayed, whether in South Korea, the United States or Europe, and this is something extremely interesting for the North Korean regime  , ”analyzes Antoine Bondaz. Last month, when the president's sister attacked the sending of leaflets from the south of the peninsula to the north and had the Kaesong liaison office destroyed, if the head of inter-Korean relations in South Korea s was expressed, "  he would not have received the echo that received the communication from Kim Yo-jong  ".

Furthermore, and this is even more interesting for the North Korean president, when she sends messages, she does not commit her brother or the whole of the government. The president can easily reverse a decision announced as having been taken by Kim Yo-jong without any institutional problem being posed, explains the researcher, "  since this is sort of a family story  ". This is somewhat what Kim Jong-un did after the destruction of the liaison office ordered by his sister, when he announced that he was suspending "  military action plans against the South  ". Same thing in his international negotiations: Kim Yo-jong can easily attack the United States and leave to his brother "  the beautiful role, that of calling for example to American concessions and a resumption of dialogue  ". This brother-sister relationship therefore allows the plan to have a certain “ flexibility ”.

► Read also: In Kaesong, North Korea destroys the liaison office with the South

Welded siblings

To get there, the president obviously has to have perfect confidence in his sister ... "  They have been close and accomplices since their childhood  ", especially since they were educated together in Switzerland, recalls historian Juliette Morillot (co-author of Mijin, confession of a North Korean Catholic ): “  I think that Kim Yo-jong has a political role of support with his brother, that they discuss a lot, that everything is concerted since it is the only person he really trusts  ”. According to the words of a Russian diplomat, their father Kim Jong-il estimated that of these two children, it was Kim Yo-jong "  the fastest, the most lively  ", reports Juliette Morillot, for whom the young woman actually has the reputation of being “  very skilful, very fine in its reasoning  ”.

Kim Jong-il was also very close to his sister, whom he had similarly put forward: Kim Kyong-hui was director of the Light Industry Department in the years 1990-2000, when North Korea decided to develop it after focusing on heavy industry. A highlight only within the country, while Kim Yo-jong has also acquired for two years a leading diplomatic role.

A little known life

However, there is little information concerning her: she would have been born in 1988 or 1989, and after her studies in Bern in Switzerland with her brother would have returned to Pyongyang for studies of physics at Kim Il-sung University. Then, explains Juliette Morillot, "  she gradually took more and more important positions within the regime  ", directing the Department of agitation and propaganda, taking up positions within the Party, "  and today today we see that finally, even if we do not know her official position, she is the privileged interlocutor of the South Korean Ministry of Unification  ”.

Rumor has it that she is married to Choe Ryong-hae's son, who, Antoine Bondaz points out, is in a way "  the number 2 of the regime: the vice-president of the State Affairs Commission, the key institution to make decisions about the future of the regime  . " For the researcher, "  if this marriage was confirmed, it would signal that Kim Yo-jong not only has a somewhat dynastic legitimacy, but that she has also been able to forge alliances with powerful families and decision-makers in North Korea  " .

The heiress?

In fact, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the North Korean president no longer appeared in public, a question was on everyone's lips: could the sister succeed the brother? What is certain is that we have started to see it everywhere: tribune in the Rodong Sinmun - the Party organ, critical violence in South Korea, destruction of the Kaesong liaison office ... Why this implementation before?

"  North Korea is probably going through a complex period today  ," says Juliette Morillot: as it shares its only border with China, the country of origin of the coronavirus, it is hard to believe, as Pyongyang states, that the country has not been affected by the pandemic. In addition to prevent - or slow down - the spread of the virus, North Korea has completely closed this border through which normally transits 80% of the country's trade. In short, economic and health problems which, according to the historian, "  probably led to an awareness within the regime  ": in these already difficult conditions we must avoid a possible vacancy in power, which could be caused by Kim Jong's disease -one, fragile health - overweight, heart problems, not to mention the coronavirus ...

► Also read: Disappearance and reappearance of Kim Jong-un: back on a media frenzy

In recent weeks it has therefore been a question of legitimizing the president's sister, "  the only one in whose veins the blood of the Mont Paektu dynasty flows  ", recalls Juliette Morillot. Thus the destruction of the office of Kaesong "  allows him to have a certain legitimacy vis-à-vis the army  ", same thing vis-à-vis the population with the editorial that she signed in his name, a month ago, in Rodong Sinmun (a first). The path will still be more difficult for Kim Yo-jong, notes the historian: she is young and she is a woman, who is more in a Confucian country, "  but she has for her an asset that no one else can have in North Korea: it comes from this line of Mount Paektu  ”. However, underlines Antoine Bondaz, there is little chance that Kim Jong-un will present it in the coming years as his official successor: this would only fuel the "  fantasy machine  " on his state of health ...

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• North Korea
• Kim Jong-un

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