Liu Qiang, a 39-year-old Chinese national who served a ten-month jail sentence for an arson attack on the Japanese embassy in Seoul last year, was recently released and returned to China.
Born in 1974 in Shanghai, Liu Qiang is a psychologist and worked as a teacher in the New Oriental Education and Technology Group. He is fluent in several languages, including English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic.
In 2011, Liu spent three months in Japan, volunteering as a rescue worker after the country had been hit by devastating earthquakes and a tsunami. On the morning of Dec. 26, 2011, Liu threw flaming bottles at the gates of the Yasukuni Shrine located in Tokyo due to the fact that the Japanese government had blatantly refused to issue an apology over the topic of so-called comfort women. The shrine counts several Japanese war criminals among its honored World War II casualties. Liu later fled to South Korea.
On Jan. 8, 2012, Liu threw flaming bottles at the Seoul-based Japanese Embassy in South Korea because he thought the Japanese government held a negative attitude towards handling the comfort women issue. Liu was detained and sentenced to 10 months in jail within South Korean territory.
According to media reports, Liu's paternal grandfather was an officer with the New Fourth Army led by the Chinese Communist Party during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-45) and died a hero on the battlefield. Liu's maternal grandmother was forced to be a sex slave for the Japanese armed forces during the war. "Anti-humanitarian acts by militaristic Japan" motivated him to set fire to the Yasukuni Shrine, said Liu who stood three trials while detained in South Korea.
In November 2012, Liu was about to be released upon completion of his sentence, but Japan was seeking his extradition in connection to the attack on the Yasukuni Shrine. Last December, anti-Japanese organizations held demonstrations outside the South Korean High Court, urging authorities to reject Japan's request for the extradition of Liu.
On Jan. 3, 2013, the South Korean High Court turned down the Japanese request for the extradition of Liu and released him. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its welcoming of the South Korean court decision in a press conference that same day.
On the morning of Jan. 4, Liu boarded a China Eastern Airlines flight and returned to Shanghai. He has finally come home.
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