Dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China in rubber boat | China
A Chinese dissident washed up on the shores of South Korea after trying to escape from China in a plastic boat.
Dong Guangping, 68, remains in custody in South Korea after being detained by the coast guard on Monday evening. China is thought to have traveled more than 30 hours by sea to reach the shores of its democratic neighbour.
Dong had tried to flee China several times before, according to media reports and interviews with two of his friends.
He fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter in 2015. However, Thai authorities detained him and sent him back to China, even though he had been granted refugee status by the UN refugee agency.
In China, Dong, a former police officer-turned-government critic, was sentenced to more than three years in prison.
After his release in 2019, he tried to swim to Kinmen, a small Taiwanese island three miles off the Chinese coastline, but struggled in the sea and was taken back to China by fishermen.
He fled to Vietnam again in 2020, but was later arrested and returned to China.
Chinese dissident Zang Xihong, who uses the pseudonym Sheng Xue in Canada, has been in contact with Dong since his attempt to flee China to Thailand in 2015.
Zang spoke to Dong by phone on Tuesday morning while he was detained by the coast guard in South Korea’s western Taean county.
The coast guard issued a statement on Wednesday confirming that a Chinese man in his 60s had been arrested and questioned on suspicion of violating immigration law, according to Reuters. The man was on a 12-foot boat with a 10-horsepower engine when he was spotted about 38 nautical miles offshore.
A South Korean coast guard spokesman said an arrest warrant had been requested for Dong on charges of illegal entry.
Zang said Dong had traveled more than 30 hours by boat from Weifang in Shandong province on China’s east coast. The distance between Weifang and Taean is more than 300 km (186 mi).
Zang said Dong was “almost unconscious” when he reached South Korean waters.
He said he wasn’t surprised that Dong would attempt such a dangerous journey.
“I didn’t know exactly when he was going to leave, but he had told me before that he would definitely find a way to get out. I knew he had that determination and will,” Zang said.
Dong was previously imprisoned between 2001 and 2004 for “inciting subversion of state power”. He has frequently been in trouble with authorities over his activism regarding the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, one of the most politically sensitive events in China.
“He sacrificed a lot for the legacy of Tiananmen,” said Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader of the 1989 protests who has been in contact with Dong for several years.
Dong’s journey mirrors that of Kwon Pyong, an ethnic Korean Chinese citizen who fled China to South Korea on a jet ski in 2023. South Korean authorities charged him with illegal entry into the country and he was not allowed to leave South Korea for nearly a year. He eventually settled in the USA.
It is thought that Dong hopes to settle in Canada, where his family lives.
The Canadian embassy in Seoul declined to comment. The Chinese embassy in Seoul was approached for comment.
Additional research by Yu-chen Li
