Chinese Dissident Escapes to South Korea on Rubber Boat, Aims to Reunite With Family in Canada

Dong Guangping, a Chinese human rights advocate who has repeatedly tried to flee China, has been detained by the Korean Coast Guard after he was found in a rubber boat off the country’s west coast, once again fleeing China as he seeks to reunite with his family in Canada.

A Chinese national was spotted on an inflatable boat about 70 kilometres off the west coast of South Korea late on May 25 after a fishing vessel crew alerted authorities, the coast guard said in a statement.

Sheng Xue, a prominent Chinese-Canadian author and democracy activist based in the Toronto area, identified the Chinese dissident as Dong Guangping in a series of social media posts. She said she spoke with Dong by phone on the night of May 25 after he was detained, and noted a friend of hers in Korea had located Dong and called the coast guard.

“Dong Guangping is just too resilient, too brave,” Sheng said in a May 26 post on X. “He had discussed with me before about escaping by boat, and I thought it was way too dangerous!! But he actually went ahead and did it.”

She said Dong set off from Weihai in China’s Shandong Province and travelled for more than 30 hours before he was spotted approximately 18 kilometres northwest of Taean County, South Korea. She said Dong told her when he reached Korean waters he felt he was basically “already in a coma” as he had not slept for more than 50 hours.

“The Coast Guard immediately dispatched patrol vessels on an emergency basis, arriving at the scene about an hour later and taking Dong Guangping into custody,” Sheng said.

The Korean Coast Guard said Dong was arrested after travelling more than 300 kilometres from China, and is being questioned on suspicion of immigration law violations.

Dong, 68, is a former Chinese police officer who lost his job in 1999 after he criticized the Chinese regime and participated in a memorial for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He was imprisoned for his human rights activities from 2001 to 2004, and was detained in 2014 for more than eight months after he attended another event commemorating the victims of the massacre.

In 2015, Dong fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter, who were resettled in Canada as refugees. Dong was also recognized as a refugee by the United Nations and was accepted by Canada for resettlement, but Thai authorities allowed Chinese police to take Dong back to China.

Once back in China, Dong was detained, forced to make a false confession on state television, and jailed again from 2016 to 2019. He faced continued surveillance and harassment by Chinese authorities after completing his sentence.

Dong again fled China and arrived in Vietnam in 2020, where he was waiting to reunite with his family in Canada but was again detained by Vietnamese authorities in 2022 and sent back to China.

Human rights groups, as well as Dong’s family, have previously urged Chinese authorities to release Dong and allow him to travel to Canada to be reunited with his family.

Human Rights in China (HRIC), a New York City-based advocacy group, says the many years of imprisonment and persecution Dong has faced “stem solely from his peaceful exercise of fundamental human rights and freedoms.”

“For more than a decade, he has never ceased striving for liberty and reunion with his family,” HRIC said in a May 26 statement. “That a man nearing seventy years old was driven to cross open seas in a small inflatable boat is itself a devastating indictment of China’s human rights situation.”

HRIC is urging the South Korean government to “uphold humanitarian principles and international human rights obligations” by ensuring Dong is not returned to China, where the group says he faces a “grave risk of persecution and torture.”

HRIC is also calling on South Korea to let Dong seek political asylum or to “facilitate his safe passage to reunite with his family in Canada.”

Sheng said in a May 27 social media post that a diplomat asked her for more information on Dong that day, which she said means “Canada’s official rescue operation is already underway.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Canadian Embassy in Korea for comment but the embassy said it is not in a position to comment and recommended the inquiry be directed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada told The Epoch Times that Canada has “a proud tradition of protecting refugees and supporting their resettlement with compassion, respect, and dignity.” However, the department noted that it cannot comment on individual cases due to privacy legislation.

Limin Zhou and Reuters contributed to this report.