Mick Hartley

There's a long piece in the Sunday Times Magazine by Richard Lloyd Parry, arguing that Kim Jong-un’s sister Yo-jong is the real power in North Korea, and could be the next leader:

Her formal role has changed over the years; officially, she is in the middle ranks of a political and military pecking order still dominated by the names of older and more experienced men. But, to those who follow the opaque workings of the Pyongyang leadership, there is little doubt that she is the most powerful and important person in North Korea. “Some days, I think they just put Kim Jong-un in there as a military leader because they needed a big dude to project authority,” says Michael Madden, a Pyongyang expert who runs the website North Korea Leadership Watch. “Kim Yo-jong is the brains behind the operation.”

Nothing is clear or certain in North Korea — but she could easily end up being the country’s next supreme leader. When Kim Jong-un succeeded his father in 2011, few outside the capital knew his sister’s name. Now she directs her country’s relations with its most important enemies, oversees its propaganda operations and stands as her brother’s heir presumptive…

I don't buy it. For a start, North Korea is a deeply patriarchal society and the chances of a woman taking power are minimal to non-existent. Clearly as a daughter of the Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il, and therefore a scion of the sacred Mt.Paektu bloodline, Kim Yo-jong had to have some role found for her – but it's mainly involved hurling intemperate and gauche insults at South Koreans…like a "running wild dog on a bone given by the U.S", "they must be really idiots", and North Korean defectors…"rubbish-like mongrel dogs" and "cowering poodles". She doesn't, to be honest, come across as the smartest of bulbs.

This one picture from the article is doing a lot of work:

Yes, she does look here to be super-competent, helping her momentarily hesitant brother to sign a document. Clearly posed. I think we need more than that.

In such a secretive world, I suppose, any old rumour can have its day…