The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is taking center stage in an escalating, and very nasty, campaign against South Korea.
While Numero Uno Kim Jong Un stays out of sight, 32-year-old Kim Yo Jong is putting her name on calls to punish Seoul.
The proximate cause of her orchestrated wrath is the success defectors to the South have had launching balloons to drop leaflets in Kim Jong Un-land that bear heavy-handed messages about his supposed ill health, his egregious human-rights violations, and the general poverty of the North Korean people compared to the luxurious lifestyles of the elite.
“I would like to ask the south [sic] Korean authorities if they are ready to take care of the consequences of evil conduct done by the rubbish-like mongrel dogs,” she said, professing to “detest those who feign ignorance or encourage more than those who move to do others harm.”
A subsequent report by the news agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is to say the North, declared, “The south [sic] Korean authorities connived at the hostile acts against the DPRK,” and accused Seoul of “trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses.”
The North’s Korean Central News Agency cited Kim Yo Jong and Kim Yong Chol as the figures who decided to cut off the fragile connections previously agreed to by the leaders of the two Koreas. In consequence, the dream of reconciliation by South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in appears to be drifting away over the horizon.
North Korea is not only ignoring Moon’s entreaties for dialogue but cutting off channels that Moon proudly established after meeting Kim for what seemed like a landmark summit in the truce village of Panmunjom more than two years ago.
Daily communication between North and South on telephone links between liaison officers, once hailed as symbols of reconciliation, have been terminated, it would seem, on the orders of Kim Yo Jong, although there’s little doubt big brother is backing her up.
It was in her capacity as first vice department director of the central committee of the Workers’ Party that she and the party vice chairman, Kim Yong Chol, decided there was “nothing to discuss” with South Korean “authorities.”
The fact that she played a leading role in the decision despite her minor formal title clearly suggests that she’s operating as a stand-in for her brother, the party chairman, who has delegated broad responsibilities to her while he keeps out of sight.
She now appears to exercise real control over Kim Yong Chol, a former top-level intelligence official and negotiator who lost influence after the failure to get rid of sanctions in three meetings between President Trump and Kim Jong Un, even as the North avoided giving up its nuclear program.
The KCNA report on the cut-off of communications was brimming with rage against the South, even though President Moon’s name was not mentioned.
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