Because of a 70-year-old war, the Korean Peninsula is divided between a flourishing democracy in the South and a brutal, secretive dictatorship in the North.

Three men have ruled it, but neither they nor any member of their family has stepped foot in the South since 1950.

Until this passenger, Kim Yo-jong.

The sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has become the first member of her family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.

On the surface, she entered South Korea to attend the Winter Olympic Games.

But in reality, she had a much more sinister mission.

The Kim dynasty is smart.

They know how to tantalize and how to attract attention.

Kim Yo-jong's sudden appearance upended decades of assumptions about the Kim dynasty, and poses completely new questions.

Could this woman be next in line to rule North Korea?

And should we be hopeful or afraid?

Yes, she may be young.

She may be photogenic.

But she is who she is.

Watch out.

North Korea claims to be the perfect socialist state, ruled by a party elected by its people.

But in reality, it's a totalitarian dictatorship built on a cult of personality around one family.

As you probably already know, that family is the Kim family.

And to understand them and this part of the story, I'm going to build a family tree.

Okay, so this is the Kim family, but not all members are created equal.

The supreme leader wields the ultimate authority.

First, that was the founder, Kim Il-sung.

Then his son, Kim Jong-il.

And now his son, Kim Jong-un.

They alone decide the fates of the other members, whether it's to promote them to high positions or order their execution.

The Kim leaders have also enforced a strict separation of the roles of men and women, both within their family and outside it.

North Korea is a very conservative country.

The view on its women still remains in the 20th century.

Soojin Chun is a journalist who recently wrote a book about women in North Korea.

Kim Il-sung was saying that we need to promote the human rights of women and we need to see more women figures.

But actually, that happened to be only words.

Because when you see the top tier of the North Korean elite in Kim Il-sung's era, everybody is male.

The one and only lady was his wife.

Kim Il-sung called his wife the mother of Korea and used her to display what he believed were the proper roles of Korean women.

But he never gave her any real power.

The next leader, Kim Jong-il, shared the same attitudes.

But his son, Kim Jong-un, appears to be different.

He frequently brings his wife to high-level meetings.

He installed North Korea's first female foreign minister.

And he's made another woman the second most powerful person in the country.

Kim Yo-jong, vice-president of the Central Committee for Women's Rights, is here with us.

Welcome back everybody to Search Party.

I actually found this story using a tool that I've been using more and more and it's called Ground News.

And they're the sponsor for this month's video.

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Now let's get back to the video.

Kim Yo-jong is Kim Jong-un's younger sister.

Most of the world learned about her when their father, Kim Jong-il, died.

This is her crying at his funeral.

When Kim Jong-un took power, he promoted her to lead the Propaganda and Agitation Department, where she was in charge of keeping North Koreans properly indoctrinated in the Kim's ideology and completely loyal to her brother.

Even though Kim Yo-jong's official title ranks her below many other officials, her relationship to her brother gives her power over all of them.

And we know that thanks to some clues in North Korean media.

State-run media of North Korea is very meticulously calculated.

Sometimes we see Kim Yo-jong standing next to her brother, Kim Jong-un, and she's just totally carefree.

And nobody except for Kim Yo-jong can be that carefree, standing next to Kim Jong-un.

A more obvious sign is this 2019 photo on Mount Paektu.

This is where, according to mythology, the Korean people and culture originated.

In order to claim their legitimacy as rulers, every Kim leader has appeared in propaganda on Mount Paektu.

Kim Jong-un is pictured there all the time.

But in this photo, Kim Yo-jong is there next to him.

It is a huge message from the regime to the people, that, OK, she is the royal family, and not everybody can ride that horse with that emblem.

That star emblem is only on the siblings' horses because it represents the Mount Paektu dynasty, a.k.a. the Kim family.

This photo is meant to be a reminder to the people that she has royal blood and can rightfully rule North Korea if something were to happen to her brother.

Do you think she's next in line to rule?

I've asked the same question to hundreds of experts, and they are all very skeptical.

If Kim Jong-un dies today, she will be the interim heiress.

She is a number two who actually never dreams of being number one, but actually is very well aware that she is the number two of the regime.

And she's more than just a placeholder.

She's been given the power to execute her family's most important mission.

For decades, the Kims have poured almost all their resources into building up their military and nuclear weapons arsenal, leading many countries to impose harsh sanctions on them that have crippled their economy.

As a result, their people have suffered through famine and starvation, but the Kims are still in power because they've developed a scheme to trick their enemies into helping them.

They're cruel, they're totalitarian dictators, but they're not bonkers.

Sung Yoon Lee is the author of a new book about Kim Il-sung.

He says the scheme has three steps.

First, the Kims isolate themselves and threaten their neighbors with missile launches, nuclear tests and war.

Next, when the tension reaches a boiling point, they suddenly suggest peace.

Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il discovered that the more dramatic they made this turn, the more they could fascinate the world.

In 1972, Kim Il-sung suddenly invited American reporters and experts into his palaces for the first time.

And in 2000, after years of threats, Kim Jong-il caused a sensation when he met with South Korea's president for the first time since the Korean War.

Kim Jong-il became a very popular guy in South Korea.

People imitated his hairdo, the name Kim Jong-il became popular, and everyone said, wow, the mysterious North Korean dictator is not only not crazy, but very knowledgeable.

Even self-effacing, has a sense of humor, is a very reasonable man with whom we can do business.

All of this is a way for North Korea to get into a favorable position for step three, negotiations with South Korea and the U.S.

North Korea would make some promises about peace or denuclearization in exchange for food, aid and sanctions relief, or just as a way to buy time to keep building their nukes.

But each Kim would then ignore their promises and restart the scheme.

Kim Jong-un began step one almost as soon as he took power.

North Korea launched a long-range missile.

The most powerful the nation has ever launched.

Once the world was bracing for war, it was time for step two.

But this time, Kim Jong-un wasn't the one suddenly acting generous.

It was his sister.

And she did it by flying to South Korea.

After making a dramatic arrival, she attended the Olympics opening ceremony and then a hockey game.

Everything from her smile to her outfits and makeup were dissected and praised by the South Korean media, which is exactly what the Kims wanted.

The widespread tendency to underestimate young women works in North Korea's favor.

She's a pretty young woman, so she can get away with,

I would say, more than her surly looking brother.

She then met with South Korea's president and relayed an invitation for him to meet her brother in North Korea, beginning a series of summits between her brother and the presidents of South Korea and the United States, where the Kims gained a lot.

In 2018, Kim Jong-un made a historic visit to South Korea and made vague promises about making peace.

In turn, he was celebrated as a peacemaker by the South Korean government.

Then, while negotiating with the U.S. in 2018 and 2019, he bought his regime time and some sanctions relief.

Having Kim Yo-jong execute step two was a brilliant update to a decades-old scheme.

The fact that Kim Jong-un sent his dear little sister to South Korea, this time they must meet it.

Meanwhile, all those good things that North Korea has promised in the past, denuclearization, reconciliation, peaceful merger, reunification, that request, had it been made by Kim Jong-un,

I don't know that South Korea would have responded with such alacrity, such eagerness.

Kim Yo-jong was so effective at manipulating North Korea's enemies that Kim Jong-un promoted her into North Korea's top decision-making body.

And many experts believe he also named her first secretary of the party, his senior-most deputy.

In 2020, the Kim siblings started the scheme over again.

But this time, Kim Yo-jong handled step one.

She began issuing many statements in her own name, viciously insulting South Korea's leader.

Then she ordered the destruction of a liaison office built for North and South Korean relations, calling it useless.

It increased speculation that a woman might really rule North Korea and reached a peak when Kim Jong-un fell ill during the COVID pandemic and she appeared to fill in for him.

She has created this image, intentionally, of course, that she is to be feared.

They will come a day when she plays the role of the good cop.

Kim Yo-jong isn't just the most powerful woman in North Korean history.

She's the most powerful person ever to not be a supreme leader.

And although she may only be a backup, she could be paving the way for another woman to rule.

This is Kim Ju-ae.

She's one of three children that experts believe Kim Jong-un is the real leader of North Korea.

Kim Yo-jong is the daughter of Kim Jong-un's son, Kim Il-sung.

Kim Yo-jong is the daughter of Kim Jong-un's son, Kim Il-sung.

She's one of three children that experts believe Kim Jong-un has.

Two daughters and one son.

And recently, he's been taking a lot of pictures with her.

At dinners, with the military, and at missile launches.

This led to speculation that she really could be the next heir to the North Korean throne.

At first, Soo-jin wrote that there was no chance of this happening, but she told me she's recently been reconsidering.

I am 30% yes that Ju-ae is likely to be the heiress.

And 70% still no.

There was one photo of Kim Ju-ae standing in front of her father, Kim Jong-un.

And the fact that the state-run media actually put that out means something.

Sung-yoon Lee believes that showing off Ju-ae is a strategy only Kim Yo-jong could have come up with, and that it's a message to her family's enemies.

Hello, Mr. Biden.

Hello, Mr. Trump.

Whoever's in the White House, four years from now, eight years from now, 10 years from now, it won't be you.

Whereas I'm here to stay.

One day one of my children will take over.

We're a dynasty.

All right, thanks everyone for watching episode 9 of Search Party.

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