Overview
- South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers it now characterizes the girl, widely known as Kim Ju Ae, as moving from “successor training” to a “successor‑designate stage.”
- The agency will track whether she appears at the Workers’ Party Congress and what protocol she receives, which it says would further clarify her status.
- Analysts say any formal step could range from subtle messaging to a party title such as first secretary, though age rules and opaque politics could delay overt appointments.
- The teenager’s rising profile includes frequent appearances at missile tests, parades and factories, a Beijing trip with her father, and state media honorifics usually reserved for leaders.
- Pyongyang has not confirmed her name or age; South Korean estimates place her birth in 2013, and her January visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun was seen as an important succession symbol.