Cast your mind back a few months, and you’ll
remember that the Internet was awash with rumours that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un
had finally died. It took weeks for any official confirmation
that he was alive to surface, and Kim Jong-Un’s three-week absence was rife with reports that
his younger sister, Kim Yo-Jong, might take his place as North Korea’s Supreme Leader. Kim Jong-Un has been a famously brutal ruler
in a country with a history of eccentric dictators – so the real question is whether his sister
would change things for the better, continue business as usual, or begin her own horrific
reign that’d make her brother and father look like Gandhi in comparison. You might be surprised by the answer. Back in April, Yo-Jong was the talk of the
international stage as all eyes moved to North Korea and its possible shift in power. She’d also been spotted at political summits,
and even sitting next to US Vice President Mike Pence at the South Korean Olympics. The Hermit Kingdom is famously reserved with
the information it releases to outsiders – with goofy titbits like Kim Jong-Il’s allegedly
perfect bowling game and Kim Jong-Un’s alleged ability to drive a car at age three being
largely unintentional exports. Nobody really knew what to think of the mysterious
Kim Yo-Jong. Some, bizarrely, congratulated her for the
possibility of breaking the glass ceiling of North Korea’s Supreme Leadership. Twitter was flooded with jokes and memes complimenting
Yo-Jong’s physical appearance, or imagining potential interactions between her and US
President Donald Trump. Others were less optimistic, and worried that
the shards of Yo-Jong’s glass ceiling would rain down on the North Korean people below,
to deadly results. There’s been long-running speculation among
foreign policy experts that Kim Yo-Jong is the brains of the Kim Jong-Un dictatorship,
but like any true Machiavellian manipulator, she prefers to remain in the shadows while
her boisterous brother acts as the face of the regime. Seeing as she’s shrouded in secrecy, and
is unlikely to give any interviews or release a tell-all memoir any time soon, the best
indication we have for Yo-Jong’s character as a potential ruler is her time serving her
brother’s brutal regime. Kim Jong-Un has been in power in North Korea
for nine years, assuming the role of the country’s supreme leader following the death of his
father Kim Jong-Il. Under his rule as dictator, citizens of the
DPRK have a number of their rights severely restricted. For example, the media and access to the internet
are controlled and limited by Kim’s regime. Anyone found to be openly critical of the
regime is arrested, and can expect a long stay in one of the country’s many forced
labour camps - reserved for not only political prisoners, but their families, too. Unless you tow the party line in all things,
you can kiss your freedom – and probably your life – goodbye. Information coming out of North Korea, even
details regarding the personal lives of Kim Jong-Un’s family, are often altered and
falsified, so it’s hard to sum up everything we know about Kim Yo-Jong with 100% accuracy. What we do know, however, is that she was
born in either 1987 or 1989, depending on the report. She’s the youngest of Kim Jong-il’s children,
lived a relatively sheltered childhood, and has a degree in Computer Science from Kim
Il-Sung University, though prior to this she was schooled in Switzerland with her brother. According to a number of reports, she maintains
a very close relationship with Jong-Un. Maybe they even plot ways to murder and torture
their citizens together. While her father held the title of supreme
leader, Kim Yo-Jong served as one of a group of his advisors from 2009 – earning her
nicknames like “The Ivanka Trump of North Korea” – but Kim Yo-Jong only really had
her presence noticed after she participated in the third conference of the Workers’
Party of Korea - or WPK – in 2010, and then attended her father’s funeral in the following
year, alongside her brother. So, what position does Kim Yo-Jong currently
hold within the WPK? Since 2014, she’s been the First Deputy
Director of the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department. As the name suggests, this is the department
in charge of distributing propaganda to the people of North Korea. Remember earlier when we mentioned that Kim
Jong-Un’s regime controls the country’s media? Well, that’s thanks in part to the work
the Propaganda and Agitation Department does under the leadership of his sister, who currently
runs the PAD as its de facto leader. But how exactly do they control the media? Well, say you were a North Korean print journalist,
writing for a national newspaper. Every newspaper printed in North Korea goes
through three rounds of censorship. First, the paper’s editor will have to go
through and remove anything that could potentially be read as speaking out against the WPK or
Kim Jong-Un, and then the PAD carries out two additional checks for any anti-WPK material;
and you’d better hope they don’t find anything in there that could land you and
your family in a labour camp. As well as filtering out any information that
the WPK doesn’t want the North Korean public to know, the PAD is also in charge of translating
works from other countries and keeping these secret and censored from the public. They also create all the guidelines for the
propaganda distributed in North Korea, so you have the comfort of knowing that any posters,
artwork or music praising the WPK has been approved by Kim Yo-Jong herself. Her high-ranking role in the Propaganda and
Agitation Department isn’t the only feather in Kim Yo-Jong’s cap, however. In October of 2017, Kim Yo-Jong became the
second woman ever to be appointed to the Politburo. What’s the Politburo? Its full title is the Political Bureau of
the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and it is the highest authority
in decision-making in the entirety of North Korea, as well as a real mouthful to say out
loud. Comprising important state and military leaders,
the Politburo is in charge of overseeing the day-to-day running of the WPK. It’s Kim Jong-Un’s inner sanctum, his
Jedi Council, his most trusted politicians and generals, elected by the Central Committee. They’re not only the highest authority within
the Workers’ Party of Korea, but also have absolute ruling power over the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, and their decisions become automatically enforced by law. In 2017, it was speculated that Yo-Jong’s
appointment to the Politburo was an indication that her brother wanted her to replace the
first woman to previously hold a position within the bureau, that being their aunt,
Kim Kyong-hui. While their aunt and Kim Yo-Jong were rumoured
to have had a good relationship, it’s been hinted that Kim Kyong-hui wasn’t playing
an active role in the WPK’s regime, and this is a likely reason Kim Jong-Un may have
wanted his sister to replace her. Yo-Jong, after all, had made a reputation
for herself as someone whom he could trust to act with his regime’s best interests
in mind, given her role within the Propaganda and Agitation Department. However, like many official appointments within
North Korea, Kim’s involvement in the Politburo was not exempt from a state of perpetual fluctuation
within the ranks of the WPK. In April of 2019, Kim Yo-Jong was removed
from the Politburo, only to be reinstated a year later in April 2020; around the same
time that rumours of Kim Jong-Un’s death began circulating online. From this, it’s easy to infer that Yo-Jong
knows her way around the art of political manoeuvring, and is actively pursuing power
in the event of her brother’s untimely death. In spite of this, there appears to be a real
bond of trust between Yo-Jong and her brother – making her seem like the shrewd and manipulative
Cersei Lannister to his violent and unpredictable Joffrey. Given the numerous high-profile and high-power
positions Kim Jong-Un has bestowed upon her, it’s a safe assumption that he trusts her
and her dedication to the regime of the Workers’ Party of Korea. That certainly ranks her higher in Kim Jong-Un’s
treatment than their other siblings, especially their eldest brother, Kim Jong Nam. After being prevented from becoming his father’s
successor in favour of Kim Jong-Un, Kim Jong Nam was then assassinated in Malaysia in 2017. He had been openly-critical of his brother's
regime and that earned him an assassination by his own brother. But you’d never believe how it played out. While Kim Jong Nam was waiting to catch a
flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, two women approached him claiming to be filming
a prank tv show. They sprayed him in the face with a deadly
nerve agent, and in minutes Nam was dead. It was never entirely clear if the women were
groomed assassins or unwitting pawns who had no idea what they were actually doing. Given Kim Jong-Un’s penchant for having
his siblings assassinated, Kim Yo-Jong has done well to not only serve her brother’s
regime, but also garner enough of his trust to be granted multiple positions of power
within the WPK, allowing her to work her way up the party’s ranks – despite North Korea
having an extremely masculine and chauvinist culture. It’s clear that she doesn’t share the
anti-regime sentiments of her brother Kim Jong Nam, and that seems to have served her
well and put her in the supreme leader’s favour, with her growing influence within
the North Korean government leading many to believe that she’ll one day succeed him.. Of course, “many” definitely doesn’t
mean “everyone.” A North Korea specialist named Leonid Petrov
claimed Kim Yo-Jong couldn’t possibly replace her brother as the country’s primary decision-maker. He told The Guardian that “North Korea is
a Confucian country where seniority and masculinity are respected. She is Kim's most trusted ally, but no more
than that.” On the other side of the argument, there are
those who believe Kim Yo-Jong is certain to succeed her brother to the position of supreme
leader, Washington Post journalist Anna Fifield claimed that Kim Yo-Jong is the “only Kim
family member who could even possibly take over the reins from Kim Jong Un” in a tweet
made around the time rumours of the supreme leader’s death were widespread. There’s some merit to this, as the only
other sibling among Kim Jong-Il’s infamous progeny is Kim Jong Chul – who, according
to most reports, has no interest on ruling the country, and prefers to instead devote
his time to learning guitar and obsessing over Eric Clapton. Yeah, and you thought your family was weird! Given how quickly Kim Yo-Jong has climbed
the WPK’s ranks, taking on more responsibility and control within the party, spreading her
influence and her public profile in recent years, it seems entirely plausible that she
could succeed her brother in the event of his death. How she would rule over North Korea is something
on which we could only speculate. Currently, it’s hard to imagine anything
worse than life under the oppressive regime of Kim Jong-Un and the WPK and – seeing
as she’s proved herself a dedicated enough member of the party to join the Politburo
– it seems highly likely that Kim Yo-Jong would at least continue to rule North Korea
in her brother’s image. For more info on North Korea, be sure to check
out some of our other videos like “What It Is Really Like Living in North Korea?”
and “A Day in the Life of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un”. Thank you all for watching!
