The Shadow in Harbin: How Three Nations Remember the Death of Itō Hirobumi

On 26 October 1909, at the Harbin railway station, the first Prime Minister of Japan, Itō Hirobumi, was shot and killed by the Korean independence activist An Jung-geun.
The assassination became one of the most symbolically charged events in modern East Asian history—not merely because a statesman died, but because three civilizations recorded the same moment with three very different hearts.

Japan’s Record: A Fallen Elder Statesman

In Japan, Itō Hirobumi was remembered as a genrō—an elder statesman who helped modernize Japan and shape the Meiji Constitution.
Japanese accounts of the time framed his death as:

• A national tragedy,

• A murder of a respected diplomat,

• A disruption of Japan’s role in “stabilizing” the Korean Peninsula.

Newspapers portrayed Itō as a peace-seeking figure who opposed the harshest forms of colonial rule—though historians still debate the accuracy of this portrayal. Nevertheless, in the Japanese memory, Itō’s death symbolized an attack not only on a statesman, but on Japan’s rising international prestige.

Korea’s Record: A Martyrdom of Resistance

In Korea, the same event is remembered in an opposite light.
To Koreans, An Jung-geun is not merely an assassin, but:

• A patriot,

• A freedom fighter,

• A man who sacrificed himself to resist Japanese encroachment.

Korean history textbooks record his act as righteous resistance against Japan’s tightening colonial grip, especially after the 1905 Protectorate Treaty. An’s writings in prison—arguing that Itō was responsible for Korea’s suffering—became part of Korea’s national consciousness. The Harbin gunshot was, in Korean telling, the strike of a nation refusing to die quietly.

China’s Record: A Stage for Foreign Powers

China, where the assassination occurred, had a more detached but symbolically significant perspective.
Harbin at the time was a frontier city entangled with:

• Russian influence through the Chinese Eastern Railway,

• Japanese expansion in Manchuria,

• Qing decline.

To Chinese observers, the event revealed:

• The weakness of the late Qing,

• The intrusion of foreign powers on Chinese soil,

• The turbulence of East Asia on the eve of revolution.

While China had no direct stake in the Itō–An confrontation, the assassination highlighted how Chinese territory had become a battleground for the struggles of others.

Why the Differences Matter

The death of Itō Hirobumi demonstrates how history is never a single story.
It is a national mirror.

• Japan saw a fallen architect of the Meiji state.

• Korea saw a spark of liberation.

• China saw a symptom of imperial intrusion and national weakness.

These divergent memories reveal deeper questions:

• Who has the right to define justice?

• How do nations turn trauma into identity?

• How do shared events become unshared histories?

The assassination in Harbin is not simply an old event—it is a reminder that East Asia’s present is built on the layered memories of its past. And until these memories are understood, reconciled, or at least acknowledged, the shadows of Harbin will linger.