Since her public debut, North Korea analysts have speculated about the reason for her prominence in state media, with some hypothesising that she may be the heir to the position of supreme leader and others arguing against this idea.
[3] However, in a 2023 interview with Radio Free Asia, João Micaelo, a personal acquaintance of Kim Jong Un, expressed doubts that the North Korean leader had ever fathered a son.
[7] The name "Ju-ae" was first mentioned by American basketball player Dennis Rodman during a 2013 account of a visit he made to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang the previous year.
[11][12] However, Choe Su-yong, a former NIS intelligence officer, claims that Rodman misunderstood the Korean words jeoae (저애), which mean "that girl", and that the child's actual name is Un-ju (은주).
[16] Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior analyst at the Open Nuclear Network in Vienna, Austria, suggests that the photos may have been intended to "bolster [Kim Jong Un's] image as the father of the people and the nation", and "highlight the necessity of nuclear weapons programmes for the security of future generations", with Ju-ae representing future generations.
She participated in official festivities with her father during that year's celebration of the Day of the Shining Star, the birth anniversary of her grandfather Kim Jong Il, on 16 February.
Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times suggests that it may be a response to rivalries within the North Korean government and an attempt to reassert the political supremacy of the Kim family.
[20] In a closed-door meeting on 29 July 2024, the NIS reported to members of South Korea's National Assembly that Kim Ju-ae was being trained to succeed her father as supreme leader.
[25][26][27][28] Park Jie-won, who served as the NIS' director from 2020 to 2022, dismissed the report's findings, noting that possible successors had previously been kept hidden from the public eye.