Kim Yo Jong Is the World’s Most Dangerous Woman

Excerpt

He needs to “shut his mouth.” That was the advice Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, gave to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol after his offer to provide economic aid to Pyongyang in exchange for nuclear disarmament. In the just-released book The Sister: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World, South Korean scholar Sung-Yoon Lee chronicles the younger Kim’s rise to power within the North Korean system and expertly describes her function as the regime’s de facto deputy leader. A closer look at Kim Yo Jong is long overdue, for she appears well-positioned to become the paramount leader of a nuclear-armed state one day.

A deep dive into the often inscrutable dynamics of the Kim family and the North Korean elite can be intimidating for the nonexpert reader. Lee is a Korean studies professor and can draw on his deep expertise in the Korean Peninsula’s politics; he also attended the International School of Geneva at the same time as Kim Yo Jong’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam. In the first-ever book that focuses solely on Kim Yo Jong, Lee provides meticulously researched color and detail, helpfully accompanied by a family tree and chart of the principal characters. His book is a clinical narrative but also comes with a strong point of view: He does not hide his disdain for Kim Yo Jong and her facilitation of her brother’s many atrocities against the country’s population. As the book’s cover notes, Lee considers her to be the most dangerous woman in the world.

Anthony Ruggiero is the senior director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the U.S. National Security Council during the Trump administration. Twitter: @NatSecAnthony.