Not much is known about the younger Kim, not even his age, though his father, Kim Jong-il, and his autocratic regime had begun making preparations for the son’s transition to power.
Thought to be aged around 27, Kim Jong-un Had already been made a four-star general and occupied a prominent political post when he was reported to have made an important diplomatic visit to neighbouring China in May this year.
On the trip, he introduced himself to the destitute North’s main benefactor, possibly one of the most crucial diplomatic moves he will ever make.
“The rest of the world is going to have to look at someone who is basically a kid as having China’s support to be the North’s next leader,” Yang Moo-min, of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said at the time.
The youngest of the leader’s three sons, Kim was most likely born in 1984. His name in Chinese characters translates as “righteous cloud” while the media calls him “the young general”.
Educated in Switzerland, he is thought to speak English and German, and bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather, the North’s founder, Kim Il-sung.
Analysts say two attacks on the peninsula last year, which killed 50 South Koreans, were aimed at winning the army’s support for a continuation of dynastic rule and underscored an intent to maintain the state’s military-first policy.
Experts say the young Kim is likely to follow the same militaristic path, maintaining a strong grip over one of the world’s largest armies and pressing on with a nuclear weapons programme in the face of international outrage.
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