North Korea: Kim Jong-un promotes sister Kim Yo-jong to centre of power

Kim Yo-jong has been assigned  the place as an alternate member of the top decision-making body, reported the North Korean state media on Sunday. This move indicates that she has replaced her aunt, Kim Kyong-hee, whon was key decision maker when their father, former leader Kim Jong-il, was still alive.

“It shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed and it is a further consolidation of the Kim family’s power,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University’s 38 north website.

The personnel changes were announced following a meeting of the country’s central committee of the ruling Workers’ party, during which Kim said his nuclear weapons were a “powerful deterrent” that guaranteed his regime’s sovereignty and helped to counter the “protracted nuclear threats of the US imperialists”.

Kim Jong Sik and Ri Pyong Chol, two of the three men behind Kim’s banned missile programme, were also promoted amid a wider re-shuffle and an increasingly tense stand off between Pyongyang and Washington over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

When speaking to reporters on Saturday, Donald Trump said “only one thing will work” in dealing with North Korea, after previous administrations had talked to Pyongyang without results. The US president did not make clear what he was referring to, but has previously said the US would “totally destroy” North Korea if the state threatened its livelihood and that of its allies.

Officials in Washington have attempted to play down Trump’s opposition to the possibility of talks with North Korea, saying the president and his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who supports dialogue with Pyongyang, were in agreement on how to deal with the regime.

South Korea’s unification ministry said Kim’s promotions could be an attempt by North Korea, to navigate a way through its increasing isolation.

“The large-scale personnel reshuffle reflects that Kim Jong-un is taking the current situation seriously, and that he’s looking for a breakthrough by promoting a new generation of politicians,” the ministry said in a statement.

Details regarding Kim Yo-jong are unclear. She is believed to be in her late 20s and like her brother, is thought to have spent time at a boarding school in Switzerland.

She has long been a rising star in North Korea’s power circels and was recently given responsibility for developing the leader’s cult of personality. It was recently reported, by South Korean media, that she replaced a propaganda chief and assumed control of “consolidating Kim Jong-un’s power” by implementing “idolization projects”.

Back in 2011, she featured at the state funeral of their father and then remained out of the public spotlight until 2014, when she re-emerged at her brother’s side, during the elections to fill the seats of Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp legislature.

Since then, Kim Yo-jung has made periodic public appearances alongside her brother. Her promotion shows that she is trusted and that makes her one of the country’s most powerful females, alongside Kim’s wife, former entertainer Ri Sol-ju.

Kim Yo-jong was blacklisted by the US treasury in January of this year, along with several other North Korean officials, over the dictatorship’s “severe human rights abuses”. A landmark UN report in 2014 found compelling evidence of torture, execution and arbitrary imprisonment, deliberate starvation and an almost complete lack of free thought and belief in the country.

Kim Yo-jong sitting with North Korean leaders. (Photo: KCNA)

State media said that Kim’s speech addressing the meeting on Saturday had described the country’s nuclear weapons as a “powerful deterrent firmly safeguarding the peace and security in the Korean peninsula and north-east Asia”.

 “The national economy has grown on their strength this year, despite the escalating sanctions,” said Kim, referring to UN security council resolutions put in place to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.

In recent weeks, North Korea has launched two missiles over Japan and conducted its sixth nuclear test. It may be fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

North Korea is preparing to test such a missile, according to a Russian lawmaker who had just returned from a visit to Pyongyang.

North Korean state media, which operates as the regime mouthpiece, announced that several other high ranking cadres were promoted to the central committee over the weekend.

Foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, who named Trump “President Evil” in a bombastic speech to the UN general assembly last month, was promoted to full vote-carrying member of the politburo.

“Ri can now be safely identified as one of North Korea’s top policymakers,” said Madden. “Even if he has informal or off-the-record meetings, Ri’s interlocutors can be assured that whatever proposals they proffer will be taken directly to the top.”