Kim Jong Un’s Sister: “Most Dangerous Woman in the World”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Our next guest is examining the Kim dynasty and what the future holds for the hermit kingdom. Now, tip to be his successor, Kim Jong-Un’s sister has risen to be most powerful woman in the nation. Kim Yo Jong oversees the regime’s propaganda department and she’s taken lead on the foreign policy. In his new book, “The Sister,” scholar Sung-Yoon Lee traces her spectacular rise. And he’s joining Harry Sreenivasan to discuss the Kim dynasty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Sung-Yoon Lee, thanks so much for joining us. First, let’s start off with a little bit of news this week. There were reports that Kim Jong-Un could meet with Russia for a possible arms deal. What do you make of it?

SUNG-YOON LEE, AUTHOR, “THE SISTER”: Yes. And it would make sense. Although, when Kim Jong-Un met Putin for the first and only time, Kim Jong- Un felt, well, not properly respected because Putin, the next day, flew down to Beijing to attend a major conference while leaving his foreign guests in his home country. But today, we’re living in a different world since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The old — the former Cold War dynamics of Moscow, Beijing and Pyeongyang standing against other team, Team USA with Japan and South Korea on its side. That dynamic has returned in full force and national interest, of course, override any wounded pride. And North Korea wants to sell arms to Russia and Russia needs those North Korean ammunition and artillery.

SREENIVASAN: So, North Korean ammunition and artillery could be used in either, what, back stopping Russia’s arsenal or actually used in the conflict in Ukraine?

LEE: I think the latter. And the Biden administration has quite repeatedly alleged, stated that North Korea has been secretly supplying arms to Russia since February, 2022.

SREENIVASAN: When it comes to a potential arms deal with Russia, I mean, is North Korea interested in this — in any part to just be a thorn in the side of the West in addition to selling arms?

LEE: Well, there’s that element too, of course, North Korea wants to be taken more seriously, although all of North Korea’s interlocuters, including the United States take North Korea quite seriously in view of their capabilities. But North Korea has another agenda, which is to swap ammunition, artillery and so on, in turn for higher military technology, ICBM technology, some long-range launch missile technology from Russia. So, these national interests on the part of Russia and North Korea override any tensions, any diplomatic protocol, any concern of violation of numerous U.N. security resolutions that exclusively — explicitly ban North Korea’s testing of ballistic missiles, but North Korea completely ignored such resolutions, and on officer 100 occasions have shot ballistics millions since early 2022. And what does Russia say? Nothing. What does China say? Nothing. In fact, the two big nations, Russia and China, have worked together, cooperated to block any movement within the U.N. Security Council to issue even a verbal condemnation of North Korea.

SREENIVASAN: So, let’s talk a little bit about your new book. This is called “The Sister.” And it is a fascinating profile of someone that, obviously, I had no idea about. And what was fascinating to me is the role that you say she is really playing inside the regime, almost leading from behind. Tell us a little bit about Kim Yo Jong.

LEE: Well, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the current North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, is, to me, a fascinating figure because out of this buffoonish, you know, this weird amalgam of medieval morays and brutish male buffoonish (INAUDIBLE), that the North Korean landscape, out of this midyear (ph) has risen a powerful female leader, a co-crime boss of her family regime, the North Korean dynasty, with her finger on the proverbial nuclear button, that is. Kim Jong-Un has issued several written statements threating to preemptively nuke South Korea. And in terms of checks and balances in North Korea, there is nothing of that kind to speak of. It’s an absolutist kind of medieval style monarchy pretending to be a republic. So, she’s a really powerful woman who has, well, ambitions.

SREENIVASAN: You mention in the book, in theory, she could decide who was monitored, demoted, promoted, punished, rewarded, banished or even tied up to be executed in the town square or in a sports stadium behind closed doors. I mean, she has an official title, which is the deputy director of propaganda and agitation department. Where does she get this power from?

LEE: From her brother. And it has the prerogative of the current and previous so-called leaders. Kim Jong-Un is the third generational supreme leader of this nation, and all three leaders have enjoyed such prerogatives. My contention that Kim Yo Jong now has that power as deputized by her brother comes from reports within North Korea from different regions of the country that Kim Yo Jong has been issuing execution orders of officials and senior most officials for getting on her nerves. She doesn’t like the way so-and-so looks at her or talks to her. So, that kind of capricious and cruel power speaks to the prerogatives of the North Korea leadership.

SREENIVASAN: You describe in the book how her kind of brand has increased in visibility since the death of her father. How so?

LEE: Well, Kim Jong-Un has rapidly elevated, formally elevated his sister since the onset of COVID in early 2020. Since March 3, 2020, Kim Yo Jong has issued over 40, 4-0, written statements saying that she’s running her nation’s foreign policy toward South Korea, the U.S. and beyond. And we see a streak, a very unique streak of vituperative, vile, sarcastic note in all of these written statements. So, that’s her signature. And she has called President Biden, the current South Korean president as well as his predecessor all kinds of nasty names.

SREENIVASAN: You know, the first time a lot of people got a view of who she was, was during the 2018 Olympic games. She wasn’t there for the sport. She was there as much for the political navigation of it all. And you outline here that she had some of her requests met on some of the preconditions. Tell us what some of those were.

LEE: Yes. So, Kim Yo Jong, you know, she made her international debut on a very grand stage, the Winter Olympics that South Korea hosted in February 2018. And she was quite — well, the South Korean public and government, it seemed, was quite memorized by her physical presence in South Korea. But since then, Kim Yo Jong has gone through sort of a metamorphosis, a transformation from the previous precious (ph) princess from Pyeongyang to a foul mouth mean female (INAUDIBLE). Since 2020, Kim Yo Jong had issued various condemnation of South Korean leadership and made an exclusive demand that is to come up with a criminal law for South Korea, to come up with a criminal law that criminalizes sending anything, leaflets, toothpaste, pair of socks, a bar of soap or anything across the border from South Korea into the north. Now, human rights activists, many of them are North Korea emigrates (ph) who have resettled in the south have been for many years sending such amenities, $1 bills, the bible and so on, into the north, raising awareness on the human rights violations in North Korea. Of course, the North Korean regime does not like this. And in June 2020, Kim Yo Jong, under her own name, said, come up with a law, criminalize such activities and send these people to jail. Within hours, various South Korean government ministries said, OK, yes. We will work on it. And indeed, the law was passed a few months later in late 2020. A senior British parliamentarian has coined the term gag law to refer to this Kim Yo Jong dictated law. So, her presence, her command has been met by the previous South Korea government with alacrity, with deference.

SREENIVASAN: So, what is her role when it comes to diplomatic meetings? Because in 2018, there was a historic meeting between the north and the south. Kim Jong-Un came. He was the first leader to do so in decades. And that was also the year that President Trump met with the North Korean leader. So, where does she fit? What’s her role?

LEE: Well, I think Kim Yo Jong is an unprecedented diplomatic weapon in the North Korean diplomatic toolbox. Why? By virtue — simply by virtue of her identify, her relative youth in 2018. She was barely 30 years old. And her gender. You know, she brings this unprecedented softer feminine glow to the very brutish cold macabre image that is despotic her regime. So, I think the tendency, the latent patronization, the tendency to patronize young women, sexism, you know, latent in many of us, I would suggest men and women, is an advantage to the Kim regime. You know, it’s easier to stomach, to swallow insults coming from a young pretty woman than less photogenic and dower (ph) looking brother. So, you know, she casts a softer glow on her regime. And what she says seems to strike many as genuine and real. So, what she did in 2018, to set the stage for her brother’s debut on the international stage in his campaign to win many concessions from the U.S. and from South Korea and other countries, she’s taken on this role, and I think she relishes it being under the spotlight issuing various condemnations against world leaders, stating her nation’s undying support that they will — North Korea will always stand in the same trenches as the heroic soldiers and people of Russia, referring to the invasion of Ukraine. So, I think she’s quite enjoying herself being out there.

SREENIVASAN: You know, there was the case of the American college student, Otto Warmbier. And I wonder — he gave a forced confession. And you say that this had Kim Yo Jong’s fingerprints all over. Explain.

LEE: Yes. So, at the time, Kim Yo Jong had been running her nation’s very powerful propaganda and agitation department. And since 2014, we’ve seen some real vial homophobic, racist, sexist insults hurled against variously — a very renowned retired judge from Australia, who’s openly gay, against President Obama, very racist vile invective against President Obama and also, against the then-South Korea female president, the first ever female elected leader in East Asia. Otto Warmbier was detained, taken hostage in January 2016 while on a visit to North Korea. And then, North Korea made all these trumped-up charges, obviously, pushed Otto Warmbier to give a coerced confession and so on. And because Kim Yo Jong was in charge, the de facto leader of this department of propaganda and agitation, I see very sinister attempts to get Otto to make this confession, how he was operating under the auspices of the CIA, how his methodist church, local church promised to give him $200,000 for doing things to the North Korea regime, to insult the North Korea regime, none of this is true. And, you know, a federal judge and the District Court of District of Columbia issued a ruling finding North Korea guilty of hostage taking, of torture and of illegal extrajudicial killing. And I participated in that lawsuit as an expert witness and studied the issue carefully. So, yes. The whole unpleasant, very cruel case has her signature all over it, I would suggest.

SREENIVASAN: Do you think that the father was more impressed with the daughter? And if so, why not make her the heir in the first place?

LEE: According to various people who have spoken with the late North Korea leader, Kim Jong-il, the father. Kim Jong-il said that if his daughter, Kim Yo Jong, who’s the youngest child and the youngest daughter, obviously, if she were a boy, he would have anointed her as the heir. Well, North Korea, you know, pretends to be a communist system where there’s gender equality. The reality is the exact opposite, it’s a male chauvinistic, male dominated patriarchal society. Even the notion of a female supreme leader is quite jarring for ordinary North Koreans as well as the leadership. But I contend, for now, for the foreseeable future over the next 10, 15, years or so until one of Kim Jong-Un’s children comes of age, which is, you know, adulthood, very simply no other viable candidate to take over in case Kim Jong-Un becomes incapacitated other than his sister, Kim Yo Jong. Because it’s a royalty, a monarchy, you have to maintain power within the family and Kim Yo Jong is the only viable candidate, and that she’s capable, she’s out there, very much, and she’s ambitious. And she, again, is the only member of the family, the dynasty.

SREENIVASAN: So, I’ve got to ask just from a reporter’s perspective. There are no diplomatic relations. There are no independent journalists. It is still an incredibly closed society. How do you get enough material? How do you find out enough information to write a profile of this woman?

LEE: With great difficulty. I have looked over every single statement, I believe, every reference to Kim Yo Jong in Korean, that is North Korea documents, as well as in South Korea, with the help of research assistants, also every single reference to her in China, in Taiwan, obviously all English language sources. And I’ve been studying North Korea and teaching about it for the past 20 years. So, I’ve watched hundreds of hours of North Korean documentary and I saw that her body language and the body language of other officials in Kim Jong-Un’s presence and in his sister’s presence is basically the same, they tremble, they avert their gaze. It’s considered rude if not confrontational for an underling to look at the superior right in the eye for more than a couple of seconds. So, the way North Korean officials behave in the presence of Kim Jong-Un and his sister says a lot about how they view the sister as almost equal to Kim Jong-Un himself.

SREENIVASAN: The book is called “The Sister: The Extraordinary Story of Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World,” author Sung-Yoon Lee, thanks so much for joining us.

LEE: Thank you so much for having me.