Chaos in the Koreas sees Kim Jong Un’s sister emerge stronger than ever
On a crisp winter day two years ago, Kim Yo Jong took her first step to becoming the powerful politician her father thought she would be.
It was February 10, 2018. The youngest child of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had already made history by becoming the first member of her family since the end of the Korean War to set foot in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
The night before, she had attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She sat behind South Korean President Moon Jae-in and watched as hundreds of athletes marched together under a flag representing a unified Korea, a country carved in half in the aftermath of World War II by the Soviet Union and the United States with little regard for the thousands of families that were split apart.
Kim applauded these athletes alongside dignitaries like Moon, US Vice President Mike Pence, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was a tremendous photo op. But a trip to the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence, was a whole different ball game.
Kim Yo Jong would be the first member of North Korea’s ruling family ever to enter the halls of power of a sworn enemy.
The morning after the opening ceremony, Kim exited a black sedan to enter the Blue House. She ambled down a red carpet with immaculate posture and her head held high, exuding the confidence of a woman who had been meeting important world leaders for years. She dressed all in black and clutched a black briefcase in her left hand, dark tones that all drew attention to the red lapel pin over her heart emblazoned with the faces of her smiling father and grandfather.
As she approached the building’s threshold, she paused and, out of the corner of her eye, looked to her left. Then she slowed her gait to allow the man by her side — a nonagenarian named Kim Yong Nam who was North Korea’s ceremonial head of state at the time — to enter first, adhering to Confucian values of respecting one’s elders despite the fact her family is revered with near-religious fervor back home.
Kim Yo Jong was North Korea’s chief propagandist at the time, and her ability to craft an image was on full display in Seoul. She proved to be the perfect emissary for her country: a savvy, urbane operator who could counter the narrative of her homeland as a strange, backward, nuclear-armed relic of the Cold War that allegedly holds more than 100,000 people in forced labor camps.
Park Ji-won, a former South Korean lawmaker and presidential chief-of-staff, said after four meetings with Kim Yo Jong, he came away with the impression of a woman whose intelligence and quiet confidence were beyond her years.
“She takes after her father and brother,” said Park. “She is very smart and quick thinking. She is courteous, yet speaks her position clearly.”
Kim left after three days and would be credited for helping lay the groundwork for the first summit between Moon and her older brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She was, after all, the one who extended his invitation.
But the trip also set the stage for something else, a development that’s only become clear in the past several days: that Kim Yo Jong was about to become the boss when it came to North Korea’s relations with South Korea and arguably the second-most powerful figure in her country, answerable only to Kim Jong Un.