A Chinese dissident who fled the country in a rubber boat has been detained by South Korean authorities. Dong Guangping, 68, was picked up by the coastguard on Monday evening after travelling more than 30 hours across the Yellow Sea from China's eastern coast.
Coastguard officials in Taean, a county in western South Korea, confirmed that a Chinese man in his 60s had been arrested on suspicion of immigration law violations. He was found on a 3.3-metre boat with a 10-horsepower motor about 38 nautical miles off the coast, and an arrest warrant has been requested on charges of illegal entry, according to Reuters.
Dong, a former police officer turned government critic, has made several previous attempts to leave China. In 2015, he fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter but was deported back to China despite receiving refugee status from the UN refugee agency. He was then jailed for more than three years. After his release in 2019, he tried to swim to the Taiwanese island of Kinmen but was intercepted by fishermen and returned. A further attempt in 2020 to reach Vietnam also ended in his arrest and repatriation.
His latest journey began from Weifang in Shandong province, a distance of more than 300km to Taean. Zang Xihong, a Chinese dissident based in Canada who uses the pen name Sheng Xue, spoke to Dong by telephone on Tuesday morning while he was in coastguard custody. She said he was "almost unconscious" by the time he reached South Korean waters. "I knew he had that determination and that willpower," she said, adding that Dong had told her he would find a way out.
Dong was previously jailed between 2001 and 2004 for inciting subversion of state power, and has frequently clashed with authorities over his activism related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader from the 1989 protests who has been in contact with Dong for several years, said: "He sacrificed a lot for the legacy of Tiananmen."
Dong's escape mirrors that of Kwon Pyong, an ethnic Korean Chinese national who fled to South Korea by jetski in 2023 and was later allowed to resettle in the United States. Dong is believed to be hoping to resettle in Canada, where his family lives. The Canadian embassy in Seoul declined to comment, while the Chinese embassy in Seoul was approached for comment.
