You have to wonder why North Korean leader Kim Jong Un believed the launch of his longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile was the right place to introduce his daughter to the world.
Did he think the girl, who resembles her father, would so love to see the launch that she would forever not only revere daddy’s achievements but promise to build on the program after he’s gone?
At first glance, Kim’s daughter, a preteen, 10 or 12, may appear an unlikely candidate for succession, but North Korea’s state media would not have distributed the photos if she were not being groomed for great things. She’s believed to be the second of three children of whom Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, are the doting parents. As for her name, not officially revealed, we have to accept the word of Dennis Rodman, the old-time Chicago Bulls’ basketball star, who cuddled her during one of his visits to North Korea in 2013 as Kim Jong Un’s fun-loving guest and said her name was Ju Ae.
The decision to introduce the daughter publicly overshadows the launch of the latest model Hwasong-17, capable of reaching targets anywhere in the U.S., and it also confirms Kim’s need to be seriously worrying about his health and who’s likely to succeed him.
Beyond the succession, the fact that Kim chose the launch of the North’s most fearsome missile shows the impossibility of ever compromising on his program for developing bigger and better missiles. Now he’s imbuing the next generation with the glory of his missiles, just as he inherited the program from his father, Kim Jong Il.
The Yong-ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat who defected from the North’s embassy in London six years ago, stressed that reality to NK News, a website in Seoul that tries to track comings and goings in North Korea. “The reveal of the daughter means that North Korea will be (a) nuclear state from generation to generation,” he was quoted as saying. “The world must give up its dream to denuclearize North Korea.”
But can we be sure the photographs of Kim with his daughter show more than a loving father-daughter relationship?
Most revealing is her appearance between her mother and father in front of a crowd of wildly cheering officers. According to the report from the state-operated Korean Central News Agency, the mood was totally euphoric.
Kim Jong Un “came out to the site for the historic major strategic weapon test-fire, a crucial milestone in bolstering up the nuclear forces of the DPRK, together with his beloved daughter and wife, to personally guide the whole course of the test-fire,” said the KCNA report.
Another shot shows Ju Ae hovering over daddy’s shoulder as he officially confirmed the launch, which may have been the first of a Hwasong 17 capable of traveling 10,000 miles. (North Korea also claimed to have launched a Hwasong 17 in March, but it may have been a Hwasong 15.) Father and daughter are also seen posing in front of the missile before its launch.