[Kim Yo Jong kicked off her new role in charge of relations with South Korea by picking a fight with the government in Seoul. Then on Friday — the second anniversary of the historic Singapore summit between President Trump and her brother — North Korea issued another broadside: pledging to further bolster its military to counter threats from Washington.]
By Simon Denyer and Min Joo Kim
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Kim Yo Jong, a sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, now has a post
that puts her in charge of relations with South Korea.
(Jorge Silva/Reuters)
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TOKYO — There is a new face near the top in North Korea but no change in rhetoric.
Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was officially elevated this month to a high-profile role that effectively casts her as her brother’s deputy.
It is a stunning shift that has ignited fresh speculation that North Korea’s leader is not in the best of health — despite no firm evidence of illness — and that he could be looking ahead to ensure power remains with the Kim family.
Some officials in South Korea welcomed the news of Kim Yo Jong’s greater role, hoping she could provide a direct channel to Kim Jong Un in efforts to bring the two Koreas closer.
But several experts in North Korean affairs warned against expecting any change in the regime’s increasingly aggressive posturing — which has blasted holes in the hopes for rapprochement with the United States and South Korea.
[North Korea hangs up on the South]
Kim Yo Jong kicked off her new role in charge of relations with South Korea by picking a fight with the government in Seoul. Then on Friday — the second anniversary of the historic Singapore summit between President Trump and her brother — North Korea issued another broadside: pledging to further bolster its military to counter threats from Washington.
In a statement issued last week, Kim Yo Jong complained bitterly about defectors scattering hundreds of leaflets across the border into North Korea, calling them “human scum little short of wild animals” and “riffraff” betraying their homeland.
“Now that the mongrel dogs are doing others harm, it is time to bring their owners to account,” she added, threatening to sever ties with the South Korean government unless it cracked down on the defectors’ pro-democracy activism.
'Unusually high profile'
Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea analyst for the U.S. government, said North Korean state media gave Kim Yo Jong’s statement an “unusually high profile,” even holding it up as a reference point in articles, rallies and people’s reactions.
“This clearly was intended to give Kim Yo Jong more prominence than she — and probably any other non-Kim leader — had ever received,” she said, adding that this has transformed her image from being the leader’s sister into a policymaker in her own right.
That has reignited scrutiny over Kim Jong Un’s health, after rumors swirled in April that he was gravely ill or had died. Kim reappeared in public in early May after an unexplained three-week absence, one of several prolonged withdrawals by him from the public eye this year.
Andrei Lankov, an Asia scholar and professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, noted that Kim Jong Un has appeared in state media on only three occasions since April 11, once in public, and twice in closed-door meetings, while also not signing official documents at his usual pace.
“Something is wrong with Kim Jong Un’s health,” he argued. “And at such times, it’s important to have a deputy. And who can be such deputy? Someone who is unlikely to take all power for himself or herself.”
Kim’s father and grandfather had elevated siblings into senior positions, and Lankov said Kim Jong Un appeared to be doing the same — particularly because his children are still young.
“It’s an established tradition within the Kim family, when your future successor is a bit too young, you just take your sibling because your sibling is reliable, and probably not going to betray you,” he said.
No sign Kim Jong Un is ill
Bruce Klingner, a North Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that Kim Yo Jong’s elevation could be related to concerns about her brother’s health. Kim Jong Il’s stroke in 2008 spurred the leader to prepare his son Kim Jong Un for power.
But Klingner noted there was no evidence that Kim Jong Un’s absences were due to ill health. South Korea says it thinks the North Korean leader has simply been sheltering from the novel coronavirus.
“Since his return, Kim has seemed vibrant rather than frail, though, of course, not the picture of health, and he remains morbidly obese,” Klingner said.
Some experts said Kim Yo Jong’s hard-line comments could be seen as an attempt to bolster her credibility within the regime. But others said it may simply reflect shifting priorities within North Korea.
When the North Korean regime felt threatened by the Trump administration and wanted to dial down tensions, Kim Yo Jong visited South Korea for the Winter Olympics in 2018 and presented a friendlier, less-menacing image for the regime.
Now North Korea appears to want more concessions from South Korea by amping up the threat level, Lankov said, and Kim’s sister is presenting quite a different image to the world.
'Dark nightmare'
Park Jie-won, who served as a South Korean envoy to Pyongyang during the government of president Kim Dae-jung, said he met Kim Yo Yong last June. She came to the border village of Panmunjom to offer condolences on the death of the late president Kim’s widow.
He said her elevation would simplify inter-Korean dialogue because she had direct access to her brother.
Park said he was not worried about Kim Yo Jong’s rhetorical attack on South Korea, which he said was aimed at Kim Yo Jong’s domestic audience.
Yet his optimism is not widely shared.
On Tuesday, North Korea announced it was closing telephone ties with the South, and on Friday, it issued a fierce denunciation of the United States.
Hope for improved relations had been high during the Singapore summit in 2018, said North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon, but this has given way to “despair characterized by spiraling deterioration.”
“Even a slim ray of optimism for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula,” he said, “has faded away into a dark nightmare.”
Kim reported from Seoul.
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