Trump’s North Korea Gambit May Depend On Kim Jong Un’s Powerful Sister

PANMUNJOM, SOUTH KOREA – APRIL 27: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un (L), sister Kim Yo Jong (R) attend the Inter-Korean Summit at the Peace House on April 27, 2018 in Panmunjom, South Korea. Kim and Moon meet at the border today for the third-ever inter-Korean summit talks after the 1945 division of the peninsula, and first since 2007 between then President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea and Leader Kim Jong-il of North Korea. (Photo by Pool/Getty Images)

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During South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s recent visit to the Oval Office, President Donald Trump announced that he is open to meeting again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump was the first US president to step foot inside North Korea’s borders and even exchanged “love letters” with Kim. Yet despite a series of unprecedented summits in 2018 and 2019, those meetings failed to advance denuclearization or lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.

Today North Korea is even less likely to pursue either objective, as it has become emboldened by its closer ties with Russia and has gained more confidence on the battlefield. While it once downplayed its role in the war in Ukraine, the regime now openly glorifies North Korean soldiers killed in battle.

North Korea has also become far more aggressive in its rhetoric towards South Korea, more assertive in its language towards the US and continues to rapidly accelerate its nuclear program. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, North Korea has around 50 warheads and has enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more.

Analysts at the Brookings Institute argued that Kim Jong Un was bolder than his father, which may explain the regime’s increasing aggressiveness. Kim Jong Un was certainly brutal towards internal threats to his power (executing his uncle Jang Song Thaek in 2013) and oversaw more ballistic missiles and nuclear tests than his father and grandfather combined. But it’s not clear if this boldness is only due to Kim himself or his powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, who wields influence behind the scenes.

Kim Yo-jong rose to prominence during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games held in South Korea where she fascinated the South Korean press by showing a warmer side to North Korea. While Kim Yo-jong was regularly seen smiling with then South Korean President Moon Jae-in, this clearly was all a ruse. She has since shown her true colors as a dictator in waiting. North Korean expert and author Sung Yoon Lee noted that no matter how sweet she may sound, she is not be trusted. Not mincing words, Lee believes that she is the most dangerous woman in the world.

Today she heads the propaganda and agitation department, where she has repeatedly mocked and threatened North Korea’s adversaries. She referred to South Korea’s presidential office as a “frightened dog barking” or “idiots,” called former South Korean President Park Geun-hye a “prostitute glued to her master’s groin” and referred to South Korea’s former Defense Minister Suh Wook as “senseless and scum-like.”

And while most of the international attention still remains on Kim Jong Un, it is Kim Yo-jong that reportedly is the brains of their operation. Apparently, their father Kim Jong Il once told a Russian diplomat that his sons were “idle blockheads.” Reportedly the elder Kim passed on having his eldest son Kim Jong Chol succeed him, because he was too “effeminate.”

Although raised like royalty—educated partially in Switzerland, showered with luxury gifts, and later criticized for carrying a $7000 Christian Dior handbag)- during the Olympic Games 2018 charm offensive, Kim Yo-jong was fawned over by the South Korean media for her classic and “humble” style. Unlike her brother who at one point was more passionate about basketball than anything else, Kim Yo-jong is only focused on politics.

Women have become increasingly important in North Korea’s regime—something that is unprecedented in North Korea’s highly patriarchal society. In contrast to the regimes of his father and grandfather, women play a prominent role in Kim Jong Un’s inner circle. Alongside a handful of other female elite advisors, women such as Choe Son Hui has served as North Korea’s first vice minister of Foreign Affairs since 2018, and Pak Myong Sun heads the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) Light Industry Department and serves as a member of the Politburo.

Kim Jong Un’s 12-year old daughter Ju Ae has also been presented publicly, fuelling speculation that she is being groomed to be Kim Jong Un’s successor–another departure from North Korea’s custom of male primogeniture. But expert Sung Yoon Lee believes that Kim Yo-jong is positioning herself to take over, given her reputation for ruthlessness, arrogance and ambition.

Kim Yo-jong has learned the lessons of her father about how to expand the dynasty’s reach and increase her own power. Kim Yo-jong initially pursued fake peace overtures but is now more interested in directly escalating tensions with South Korea- to cultivate a cutthroat image to North Korean elite and the world.

As new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has taken a more conciliatory approach towards North Korea, loudspeakers placed on the inter-Korean border that blast propaganda were dismantled, with the South Korean military reporting earlier this month that the North had removed some of its propaganda loudspeakers as well. But rather than use this discovery as an opportunity for diplomacy, Kim Yo-jong immediately denied that the North had done so, and reiterated its disinterest in improving its relationship with the South.

Despite Kim Yo-jong’s dismissive rhetoric, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung praised Trump for building a personal rapport with Kim Jong Un, hoping that Trump could serve as a peacemaker, based on their personal relationship. While Trump may try to bank on the good will built with the man he once referred to as “little rocket man,” it may not be Kim Jong Un that needs to be convinced—but his increasingly powerful sister.