Speakers
-
- Sung-Yoon Lee
Details

CISS Academic Colloquium invites you to a conversation with Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee on his latest book, The Sister: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the most dangerous woman in the world.
Kim Yo Jong is the seventh and youngest child of the late Kim Jong Il and sister to current North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Since 2020, she has governed as the de facto Number Two royal making her one of the most powerful people in the world. In THE SISTER: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World (PublicAffairs; on sale September 12, 2023), North Korea expert Sung-Yoon Lee documents her rise to power, her integral role in North Korean statecraft, and how she utilizes lessons learned from her father to expand the dynasty’s reach.
As a divine princess of Mount Paektu Bloodline, Kim Yo Jong is immune to the vicissitudes of political appointments and dismissals of which the rest of DPRK officialdom must live in fear. In fact, calculated ruthlessness must guide her work as Kim Jong Un’s chief of staff, national security advisor, chief propagandist and, for the foreseeable future, heir-apparent. That a female leader in the traditional dictator mold would emerge in a male-dominated country like North Korea is an oddity in itself. But Kim Yo Jong has risen to run her government’s policy towards the United States and South Korea, while making men twice her age tremble and grovel before her.
The first woman ever to issue the threat of a nuclear weapons strike, Kim Yo Jong is the most powerful woman in North Korean history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit, issuing proclamations and denunciations in her own name, a first for any woman in the Korean royal family. She memorably called the South Korean Defense Minister “a senseless and scum-like guy” before going on to promise South Korea “a miserable fate little short of total destruction and ruin”. A princess by birth with great expectations for her macabre kingdom, she was brought up to believe it is her mission to reunite North Korea with the South or die trying. She’s ruthless and incredibly dangerous.
THE SISTER is a fascinating, authoritative account of the mysterious world of North Korea and its ruling dynasty—a family whose lust for power entails the brutal repression of civilians, a missile program that can reach the continental US, and the constant threat of global havoc.
About the Speaker: Sung-Yoon Lee is a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Previously, he taught Korean history at Tufts University. He has written on the politics of the Korean peninsula for numerous publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He has testified as an expert witness at the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on North Korea policy and has advised senior leaders, including the President of the United States.