【明報專訊】The Incident

In a world gone mad with narrow-minded patriotism (愛國主義) and tit-for-tat (針鋒相對) diplomacy, a criminal to one nation may well be a hero to another.

This is exactly the case with An Jung-geun (朝鮮民族主義者安重根), a Korean independence activist. Born in 1879, he witnessed the Empire of Japan's (大日本帝國) annexation (吞併) of Korea and led a number of rebels against Japanese rule.

On 26 October 1909 at a Harbin (哈爾濱) train station, An Jung-geun assassinated Hirobumi Itō (伊藤博文), four-time Japanese prime minister and then Resident-General of Korea (朝鮮統監), who was to meet a Russian official. An was arrested on the spot and executed (處死) a few months later.

An is regarded as a national hero by Koreans and no less respected by Chinese. After all, the man An assassinated was the mastermind behind the Japanese empire's military expansions into Qing China and the Treaty of Shimonoseki (《馬關條約》), under which Taiwan was ceded to Japan.

For that reason, during her visit in China in June 2013, South Korean president Park Geun-hye (韓國總統朴槿惠) told Chinese president Xi Jinping (中國國家主席習近平) that, An being a common hero to the two countries, the Chinese government might erect a statue of him where Itō was assassinated.

Xi accepted the suggestion. On November 18, when she had a meeting with Yang Jiechi (國務委員楊潔篪), a State Councillor of China, Park said she thanked China that the project was going on smoothly. That has drawn stern condemnation (譴責) from the Japanese government.