▲ CSIS Webinar
If North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, dies suddenly, an analysis has come out in the United States that at this point, his younger brother, Kim Yeo-jung, vice-president of the Workers' Party of Korea, is likely to be the successor.
"Even if something happens to Kim Jong-un, I don't think there will be chaos and system collapse," said Sumi Terry, Director of Asia at the Wilson Center, in a webinar on leadership in North Korea held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American think tank, on the 5th local time. “In that case, there is a high possibility that power will be transferred to Kim Yeo-jung,” he predicted.
"Kim Yeo-jung is the younger brother and second-in-command who has exercised real power since at least 2014," he said.
"It will take 2030 for Kim Jong-un's first child to become an adult," he added.
Bruce Klingner, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, said of his second daughter Kim Joo-ae, who often accompanies Chairman Kim's foreign activities recently, "In order for Kim Joo-ae to reach out and press the nuclear button, he would need a phone book (to support his feet)." It will not be the current number one in succession," he said.
(Photo = CSIS website capture, Yonhap News)