Regional history

The politics of statues

China helps South Korea honour the assassin of a Japanese colonial official

See article

Readers' comments



B Maung

Ahn Jung-geun is a hero of the Korean people. He fought for the independence and welfare of the Korean people, who's country was invaded and occupied by the brutal Japanese. It is in this light, Ahn Jung-geun can also be considered as a world hero fighting against oppression and slavery. Hirobumi Ito is no different from the other class A war criminals like Tojo. A country like Japan represented by the likes of Mr. Abe who continuously deny the terrible war atrocities and slavery inflicted upon the peoples of Asia during Japan's period of babarism cannot be treated lightly . Events like the Rape of Nanking and the so-called comfort-woman or sex-slaves are distorted by people like Mr. Abe. Such distortion of history and inability to accept blame where it rightly belongs definitely puts Japan into a category which can be considered as lacking in civilized behaviour. Unless and until Japan and Japanes leaders allow for a proper accounting for the past barbarism, Japan will always be treated with the disdain and suspicion she deserves unlike Germany which have disavowed the Nazi past.

Poor Dude

For those who do not understand the context of this dispute, Ahn is like Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler and is honored in the movie Valkyrie. No one calls Colonel Claus a criminal but is celebrated as a couragious hero instead.
The man whom Ahn assassinated, Ito Hirobumi, was no ordinary politician; he was the architect of the Meiji Resotoration, and the founder and the first prime minister of Imperial Japan, which would then go on a bloody rampage across Asia and the Pacific for the next 90 years. Ito ranks in top 5 in the importance within Japan's history and his face is printed on the 1,000 yen bill. Because of Ito being the founder of Imperial Japan and the mastermind behind its "expansion", Ahn felt that Ito had to be eliminated to stop Japan's bloody rampage.
To Japan's rightwingers Ito was like Lincoln to them, so it's like building a statue of Lincoln assassin John Booth.

June Kim in reply to B Maung

Thank you B Muang for your enlightened and true statement. The Korean people and other peace loving people of the world that stands for universal justice couldn't agree more with your statement. However, unfortunately provocations by Japanese rightists, history deniers and con-artists like Mr. Abe continues unabated. They continue praying to the war criminals at the Yasukuni War Shrine without any shame or remorse, mocking the pain and suffering of the other Asians which was brutally inflicted by Japanese militarism. And today this militarism is raising it's ugly head again. The US being the Japanese overlord should have the decency and wisdom to stop this madness before it is too late. Why the US would support a recalcitrant Japan like this is beyond comprehension. Do the US stand for peace and freedom anymore? Or is the US encouraging Japanese militarism for some dark evil reason?

FcT7eoAxYm in reply to Ghentis

"A global model citizen"? Would you call Germany as such if its government held memorial masses for Hitler several times a year? And denied the Holocaust altogether? If being "liberal and democratic" does not bring basic human conscience, one should look beyond the facade of "democracy" and examine the true nature of the beast instead. By the way, Hitler was also elected.

You should "somewhat" understand that China and South Korea have no fundamental conflict of interest, are much closer politically and culturally and economically, than China and North Korea. Mr Abe's grandfather was a war criminal, whom Abe is very proud of.

Houshu in reply to B Maung

Indeed, while no German will ever flaunt Hitler's anti-communism credentials, many Japanese as can be seen right here on this board will have people believe that Mr. Ahn Jung-geun was a Chinese communist...

Peace4All in reply to June Kim

It is in US interest to contain China's return in global status. And Japan is the perfect watchdog to do its dirty business. As for the peace and freedom you mentioned, those principles only apply to places where US has appetite for its resources, whenever needed.

Houshu in reply to Laconophile

You may call Germany's behavior groveling, others consider that's respectable atonement.
Similarly, you may consider Japan's necromancy at yasukuni quaint, others think that's sick and evil.


A few comments on the issue from a Korean:

1. I think one commenter already touched upon this, but Ito Hirobumi was much more than 'a Japanese colonial official', as modestly described in the subtitle. He was one of the founding fathers of modern Japan, holding the premiership four times (for a combined total of nearly a decade, an incredibly long time in Japanese politics) during the late 19th century. He was on one of Japan's bank notes until the 80s, and he was quite a character too - womanizer, near-perfect fluency in English, pragmatist and a commoner by birth. He was, of course, also the architect of Japan's future imperialism against its Asian neighbours.

2. Japan's response to this event has been crude and ineffective, to say the least. Perhaps to the Japanese, Ahn is a 'criminal' - but calling a national hero of a foreign country as such in a diplomatic setting is just dumb. That'd be akin to Britain calling Gandhi a criminal. This, combined with the continued right-ward shift of the Abe government in Japan, just guarantees that the bilateral relationship will suffer.

3. President Park Geun-hye of South Korea may turn out to be the greatest Sinophile to ever head the republic, despite being an arch-conservative and therefore supposed to be friendly to the US and Japan in the calculus of Korean politics. The reason is personal; CIA MAY have assassinated her father, dictator Park Jung-hee, for his nuclear weaponization program. This is one of the most widely-spread conspiracy theory in South Korea, and Park may believe this as well. And if she does - well, I don't need to spell out the implications.

4. Unlike a majority of Koreans, who only side with China when Japan says something insensitive, I find some potential in a greater strategic relationship with Beijing. Besides being our largest trading partner, China's cooperation is absolutely necessary to solve the North Korean problem. It remains to be seen if Seoul really understands this fact, instead of holding onto the right-wing fantasy that North Korea will someday collapse.


I learned about Ahn Jung-geun from a black-and-white movie when growing up in China. I thought he was a great hero and I still do after so many years.
In Chinese culture 荆柯 has been revered by many as a great hero for fighting against tyranny. 荆柯 attempted to assassinate the first tyrannic emperor of the unified China.

Houshu in reply to Laconophile

Your hyperbole is the epitome of Japanese right wing revisionist view of the WWII history. Do you even know that class-A war criminals were enshrined in yasukuni in 1978 (or so), many many years after their verdict was rendered, executed, and practically forgotten. It is Japan who is beating the dead horse in its attempt to resurrect the 大和魂, and your kind have the gall to accuse others of 'beating the dead horse'?


Hirobumi Ito is in many ways like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a unifier of Japan that immediately used his new found power on genocidal invasion. The fact that Japan has consistently produced such genocidal national heroes says plenty of Japanese culture. The West has shown extraordinary vision in curbing Japan through currency manipulation at the Plaza accord

[Laconophilein reply to HoushuNov 24th, 21:15
Every country should be allowed to commemorate their war dead in the way they deem appropriate.]

And the way China (and Korea) "to commemorate their war dead" is to not forget the cruelty of the perpetrators of such atrocities.

[Japan has apologized countless times for its action during the Second Sino-Japanese War.]

And then they "apologized" to the Class A war criminals for having apologized to the Chinese. How sincere can their apologies to their former victims be?

[ No Japanese Emperor has set foot in the Shrine since 1978 out of consideration to Chinese sensibilities. If the "symbol of the state and of the unity of the people" refuses to enter the shrine, that should be enough.]

The Japanese Emperor should be commended for their sensitivity. But then the Japanese government and society are always quick to prick open old wounds-- by going to war-criminal worshipping, school book revisions, etc-- that the rest of East Asia would prefer to forget.

The rightwing in Japan just REFUSE to let the rest of Asia forget the most painful chapter of their recent history and you don't need a genius to know why!



What will it take for Koreans and Chinese to get over these events of the remote past? The Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty took place in 1905 and the conquest of Manchuria in 1931!

Can they not see that Japan is a vastly changed country?

How many more stones must be cast Japan's way? How many scabs not allowed to heal? At this point it seems, so far as China and Korea are concerned, "Carthago [Japan] delenda est!"


South Korea is weird. Make friends with the giant authoritarian neighbor that is the only country propping up your worst enemy that routinely kills your own citizens. Meanwhile, antagonize the liberal democratic neighbor that has been nothing but a global model citizen for the past 70 years. Polls show that South Koreans by enormous margins consider China to be a bigger threat to Japan. Where is the logic to this policy?

I can somewhat understand the historical animosity, but this whole conspiracy to collude with China and purposely offend Japan is just nuts.


Chinese way to offset the Yasukuni shrine, which is certain to give rise to verbal attacks from Japanese side though there are already literal works on the historic figure in China.



Products and events


Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines

