Chinese dissident makes 4th escape bid, reaches South Korea by sea in 30 hours

A 30-hour arduous journey in an inflatable boat was all it took for Chinese dissident Dong Guangping to reach the shores of South Korea. Freedom, one would think. But this was not the first time the 68-year-old had tried fleeing China.

More than a decade ago, Dong fled to Thailand, only to be returned to China. He later escaped to Vietnam but met the same fate. There was also an unsuccessful attempt to swim across to Taiwan -- all in an effort to reunite with his family in Canada. After three failed attempts, the question now is whether the fourth time will finally be lucky for Dong.

For Dong, who has spent years in prison for his activism and has been granted asylum in Canada, his arrival in South Korea comes at a sensitive moment for relations between Seoul and Beijing. Soon after reaching the country, he was taken into custody by the South Korean Coast Guard on Monday after fishermen reported spotting a small boat off the coast.

His arrival could place pressure on the administration of President Lee Jae-myung, who took office last year and has sought to reset South Korea’s often uneasy ties with China.

The Coast Guard said it had detained a Chinese man in his 60s on suspicion of violating immigration laws and declined to publicly identify him, citing privacy regulations. However, Dong’s lawyer, Kim Joo-kwang, and Chinese-Canadian activist Sheng Xue told CNN that the man was Dong. Kim said he could not provide further details while the Coast Guard investigation was underway.

Sheng said she had spoken to Dong by phone after he arrived in South Korea and that the Coast Guard had also confirmed his identity to her. In a letter to Global Affairs Canada, she wrote that, given Dong's past, any forcible return would place him at grave risk of imprisonment, torture, disappearance and potentially death. She also said that she and Dong had discussed ways for him to escape China for a long time.

According to Sheng, Dong told her he had spent more than 30 hours on the water after leaving Weihai, a coastal city in Shandong province. She recalled that when she spoke to him, he said, "I got here!", and said he sounded proud. Dong told her that the engine on his boat failed as he neared Taean in western South Korea, and that he had not slept for two days and was close to fainting by the time he entered South Korean waters. Sheng said he was fortunate to get close to shore because the boat was small and difficult to control at sea.

Human Rights in China has urged the South Korean authorities to protect Dong and not send him back. The group said, "For more than a decade, he has never ceased striving for liberty and reunion with his family," and added that the fact that a man nearing 70 had been driven to cross open sea in a small inflatable boat was itself an indictment of China's human rights situation.

Dong previously worked as a police officer in Zhengzhou, in Henan province, before he was dismissed after co-signing a letter marking the 10th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Amnesty has said he was jailed for three years in 2001 because of his activism and was arrested again in May 2014 for taking part in another memorial for the victims of Tiananmen Square.

In 2015, Dong fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter, where all three sought refugee status from the United Nations. His wife and daughter were able to move to Canada, but Thai authorities sent Dong back to China despite appeals from his family and rights groups. His return drew criticism from rights groups and United Nations officials.

He was then sentenced to three and a half years in prison and was released in 2019. After being barred from leaving China, he later made an unsuccessful attempt to swim to Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island a few kilometres off China's east coast.

In 2020, Dong managed to cross illegally into Vietnam, but he was later arrested there and again returned to China by the Vietnamese authorities in 2022. Front Line Defenders said he was sentenced in China to 11 months in prison for illegal border crossing and was released in October 2023.

During the period when his whereabouts were unknown, his family in Canada made public appeals and delivered letters to the Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Ottawa. His daughter, Katherine Dong, had said that he kept trying to leave China because his dream of reuniting with his family was so strong. She also said, "And then again that dream of freedom was snatched away," adding that she believed he would face more persecution, mistreatment and injustice in China. Following his latest escape, Dong's family declined to comment through Sheng and other friends.

Dong's latest journey comes against a broader backdrop of tighter controls on protest and political dissent in China, including censorship and surveillance using facial recognition and other artificial intelligence tools. That has pushed some dissidents towards less conventional escape routes, rather than travelling through neighbouring countries such as Vietnam or Thailand, which have a mixed record when it comes to protecting Chinese dissidents.

In August 2023, another Chinese dissident travelled by sea from Shandong province to the South Korean port city of Incheon, a journey of about 400 kilometres, on a jet ski. South Korea's Coast Guard said the man, believed to be activist Kwon Pyong, made the crossing carrying only a helmet, binoculars, a compass and five 25-litre fuel tanks tied to the jet ski.

Canada has long provided refuge to Chinese dissidents. Many Chinese activists have also found safety in the United States over the years, although that route has narrowed because of the Trump administration's sharp restrictions on the number of refugees allowed into the country each year, with an exception for White South Africans.

It remains unclear whether Dong intends to seek refugee status in South Korea, which is known for strict immigration rules, including on asylum requests. The Coast Guard told CNN that Dong had been arrested on suspicion of violating immigration law and that the case would later be passed to prosecutors. Sheng said she had written to Canada's department of global affairs and urged the South Korean authorities not to return Dong to China.

Dong's arrival in South Korea follows years of imprisonment, failed attempts to flee China and deportations from Thailand and Vietnam. His latest escape has again prompted calls from activists and rights groups for him not to be sent back to China as he seeks to reunite with his family in Canada.

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