Kim Jong Un Conceals Mother's Japanese-Korean Origins to Protect Regime Legitimacy

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has never publicly mentioned his mother by name during his 15 years in power, reflecting the regime's secrecy surrounding her identity. The legitimacy of Kim's dictatorship heavily relies on the "Paektu lineage," a mythical ancestral line linked to the founder of the Korean people and the sacred Mount Paektu, which symbolizes purity and national heritage in North Korea. However, Kim's mother, Ko Yong-hui, was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1952 to Korean parents from Jeju Island, making her part of the "Zainichi Koreans," a community of Korean immigrants in Japan during its colonial rule over Korea.

Ko's family migrated to North Korea around 1962 as part of a resettlement program promising ideal living conditions, but they were stigmatized as "Japo," a derogatory term for Koreans with foreign ties, placing them in a socially precarious class subject to state surveillance and discrimination. This background starkly contrasts with the regime's official narrative of a pure Paektu bloodline. Analysts suggest this is why Kim's birthday is not celebrated as a national holiday, unlike those of his grandfather and father, to avoid drawing attention to his mother's origins and his upbringing outside Pyongyang.

North Korean defector and diplomat Ryu Hyun-woo, author of "Kim Jong Un's Secret Safe," explains that revealing Ko's Japanese-Korean heritage would not only undermine Kim's legitimacy but also threaten the entire hereditary system underpinning the regime. Such a revelation could have a "nuclear bomb" effect on North Korean society, destabilizing the ideological foundation of the dictatorship.

The secrecy around Ko Yong-hui's identity highlights the regime's sensitivity to any challenge to its constructed mythos and the lengths it goes to maintain the image of an unbroken, pure Korean lineage from Mount Paektu, central to its political power and control.