SUPREME SISTER

North Korean princess Kim Yo Jong is seen as the brains behind her tyrannical brother Kim Jong Un. Amid rumours of his failing health, Genevieve Gannon asks, could his sister be the next Supreme Ruler?

- Genevieve Gannon

A week before the 2018 Winter Olympics began, amid the snow-capped mountains of South Korea, the country’s brutal neighbours to the north made an extraordinary announcement. There was to be a last-minute addition to the North Korean delegation: Kim Yo Jong, the rarely seen sister of the Supreme Leader, would be attending. The news caused a frenzy. No member of the North’s ruling party had entered the South since the war ended in 1953.

Furthermore, the princess was so mysterious that even banal facts, such as her birth date, were disputed. What was known about her was that she had a special bond with her despotic big brother, Kim Jong Un, and was rumoured to be his heir. So when she stepped off the royal jet, Air Force Un, to begin three days of diplomatic appointments, the world’s press was eagerly waiting to capture every detail of the diminutive young woman who may one day lead the most brutal regime on earth.

“He had unleashed his secret weapon,” journalist Anna Fifield observed.

Kim Yo Jong cut a surprising figure. For a member of a dynasty known for its bizarre excesses and extreme cruelty, she was simply dressed. She paired utilitarian black outfits with the pulled-back hairstyle of a factory worker. Flanked by bodyguards in sky-blue ties, she wrote a message in the Olympic guestbook expressing a hope that the two nations would “get closer in our people’s hearts”. This set the tone for the visit, which won her praise for her light diplomatic touch. The press feted her apparent modesty, even as her name sat on a US Treasury blacklist for severe human rights violations.