A tap, a kiss and careful choreography: In North Korea's succession drama, Kim Ju-ae is heir and accomplice [A STUDY OF KIM JONG-UN 13] Dressed for power From white puffer to leather coat A royal drama, Pyongyang edition

As part of Kim Jong-un's tightly-controlled narrative, his daughter has inched toward center stage, delivering a new message with each act. Feb. 28, 2019, is a day North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will never forget. It is the date of the "no deal Hanoi summit," in which U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of negotiations in Vietnam, an insult the North Korean leader had never experienced before. Could Kim himself have ever imagined that, just over six years later, he would stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of China and Russia at the viewing gallery of Tiananmen Square in Beijing in September last year? Kim's elevated strategic status is a reality. He is no longer in a hurry. Even if Trump sends another overture, his new position would be to casually ignore it. How did the young leader of Northeast Asia's poorest nation, once treated merely as a joke, reach his current position? What choices did Kim make to overcome the failure of the Hanoi summit, and how has North Korea changed as a result of those choices? How has this change altered South Korea's security environment? We must now deal with a Kim of a different caliber. That is why we must study him now. - Ed. At midnight on Jan. 1, as fireworks lit the sky over Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un leaned toward his daughter, Ju-ae, during a New Year's concert at Rungrado May Day Stadium and tapped her chair. Ju-ae immediately cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the cheek. What was stranger, though, was what she did immediately after. Before she had even settled back into her seat, she turned in the opposite direction and shot a quick glance at her mother, Ri Sol-ju. Her expression looked almost as if she was checking whether she had performed the scripted moment correctly. Ri simply smiled and kept applauding. That, in effect, was the full extent of Ju-ae's role that evening. Media around the world covered the scene, with analysts concluding that her standing as heir apparent had been further cemented. The kiss on the cheek even drew a headline from Daily NK Japan, a Tokyo-based outlet focused on North Korean affairs, calling it "strange behavior" that is "stirring controversy." There was a reason for the reaction. The leader's hands on his daughter's waist, the two so close they were nearly embracing — an unusual degree of physical closeness between a father and daughter. "The KCTV did not explain Ju-ae's identity or role, but what matters is that she is continuously being exposed to the public, raising her profile," assessed Atsuhito Isozaki, a professor at Japan's Keio University and a specialist on North Korea, in an interview with the Nikkei Shimbun in November. "She is being treated as someone special." What Pyongyang is trying to show through these displays of physical closeness is, in fact, proximity to power. North Korean state media are demonstrating that Ju-ae is the only person permitted to touch the supreme leader freely in public. No media outlet has transmitted Ju-ae's voice. Instead, she already signals power through her presence. Every element is meticulously staged. From her hairstyles to her clothing, everything exposed through North Korean state media is a propaganda instrument designed to solidify the narrative of Ju-ae as heir. When she first appeared in November 2022, she was defined by a white puffer jacket. The Ju-ae of 2026 sweeps in wearing a long leather coat, firing guns and driving tanks. The closer she is positioned to her father, the more overt the staging around her becomes. On the day the pair watched a performance with hands clasped together tightly, she wore on her chest not a pin with the face of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung but a vivid red flower. In North Korea, those exempt from wearing portrait badges of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong-il — or, more recently, Kim Jong-un — have, until now, been essentially limited to the current leader himself and Ri. Yet Ju-ae has not worn a portrait badge of the supreme l...