Kim Jong Un’s Teen Daughter, at Her Father’s Side, Is the Star Attraction During Parade at Pyongyang

SEOUL — Like father, like daughter. Images of Kim Jong Un and his daughter, Ju-ae, both swathed in identical black leather coats, smiling in the freezing nighttime weather at the North Korean capital of Pyongyang as they watched 14,000 soldiers marching through Kim Il-sung Square, fortify the sense that she’s in line to succeed him.“He will keep on making people believe a successor is being groomed,” says the senior analytic correspondent for the website NK News, Colin Zwirko, talking about the colorful aftermath of the North’s ninth party congress. The more Mr. Kim keeps her on display, at his side, the more she appears as a woman of mystery.“People internally want to know, what’s the deal,” Mr. Zwirko said in a panel discussion staged by the Korea Risk Group, parent company of NK News and NK Pro., watching North Korea from Seoul. “The visual propaganda is working very well.”Never mind that Mr. Kim did not display Ju-ae at the congress, which wound up several hours before the parade without so much as a glimpse of her after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, tracking what’s going on in North Korea, predicted that Mr. Kim would introduce her as his successor. Indeed, the NIS said he’d already made her the “missile general director,” which seemed logical since he loves to take her to missile launches. Not only did Mr. Kim not show her off at the congress, much less mention any fancy titles, he never even disclosed her name. She’s called Ju-ae in the foreign press for only one reason. The basketball player Dennis Rodman, invited by Mr. Kim to Pyongyang in 2013, held her in his arms and said when he got back to America that she was Ju-ae.North Koreans, having seen plenty of images of her in state propaganda organs, have watched her growing up from her pre-teens, when she first appeared in public with her father, to now. Believed to be 13, she looks almost as tall as Mr.Im, who’s five feet, five inches tall, weighs at least 300 pounds and is believed to be 43. North Koreans, assuming she’s his daughter, are presumably anxious to know about her.That’s all part of the build-up, in the view of experts. “Kim Jong Un loves secrecy,” said another senior NK News analyst, Peter Ward. “He doesn’t want people taking her name in vain.”Father and daughter on the reviewing platform along with bemedaled generals and officials of the Workers’ Party, of which Mr. Kim is general secretary, upstaged the parade as high-stepping soldiers, sailors, and airmen strutted along with tanks, armored vehicles, and other pieces of hardware. Missing, however, were the huge missiles capable of carrying warheads to targets near and far, including the North American continent. Could Kim Jong Un have not wanted to upset his enemies in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul by appearing not too threatening? “Weapons were not the focus,” said Mr. Zwirko. “They just had a parade in October where they showed off weapons. This one was celebratory. It was a really long color guard performance. There was a concert in the parade. “The lead correspondent for NK News, Shreyas Reddy, surmised that perhaps Mr. Kim was “keeping his cards close to his chest.” By now, he said, everyone knows they have a lot of weapons. It makes sense to limit how much they have. They’re still developing weapons. They just don’t need to show them off” — at least not while Mr. Kim was showing off Ju-ae, who stole the show.

Kim Jong Un’s Teen Daughter, at Her Father’s Side, Is the Star Attraction During Parade at Pyongyang

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