As North Korea unveils stamps of Kim’s daughter, South says she’s unlikely to be a successor

Name: Kim Jong-un’s daughter seen at military events, sparking succession speculation
Uploaded: 2023-02-15T16:00:09.000Z
Duration: 2 min 5 s
Description: Kim Jong-un’s daughter seen at military events, sparking succession speculation

Since its foundation in 1948, North Korea has been successively ruled by male members of the Kim family, but Ju-ae may change that trend

South Korea said it’s still premature to determine if the daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is being groomed as her father’s successor

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Agence France-Presse

Published: 12:00am, 16 Feb 2023Updated: 1:40am, 16 Feb 2023

North Korea has unveiled new postage stamps featuring leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter following her attendance at high-profile events in another seeming sign of her rise as heir-apparent, but observers in the South say it is unlikely she is being groomed as a successor.

The state-run Korea Stamp Corporation unveiled a new series of stamps on Tuesday commemorating the November 18 missile launch – five of them featuring Kim and his daughter, Kim Ju-ae.

North Korean state media had not mentioned Kim’s children for years. But in November, at the launch of the country’s most powerful ballistic missile, Kim was pictured with his daughter in tow.

02:05

Kim Jong-un’s daughter seen at military events, sparking succession speculation

There have since been several high profile appearances by the daughter, who has never been named by Pyongyang. South Korea’s spy agency believes Ju-ae is Kim’s second child.

The corporation described the unnamed girl as Kim’s “beloved daughter” in captions describing the stamps on its website. The series will be released on Friday.

An Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, believes the stamps further cement Ju-ae’s place in the cult of personality surrounding the ruling Kim family, saying they “look like the official start of Kim Ju Ae’s life as her father’s successor”.

But others said it was still too early to say for sure, given that Kim was still in his 30s and the daughter’s name had never been mentioned officially.