Dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China in rubber boat

Dong Guangping has tried to escape on several previous occasions after been jailed for his activism in China

A Chinese dissident has washed up on the shores of South Korea after attempting to flee China in a rubber boat.

Dong Guangping, 68, is in custody in South Korea, having been detained by the coastguard on Monday evening. He is thought to have travelled more than 30 hours by sea to reach the shores of China’s democratic neighbour.

Dong has tried to escape from China on several previous occasions, according to media reports and interviews with two of his friends.

In 2015, he fled with his wife and daughter for Thailand. But the Thai authorities detained and deported him back to China, despite the fact he had been given refugee status by the UN refugee agency.

Back in China, Dong, a former police officer turned government critic, was jailed for more than three years.

After his release in 2019, he tried to swim to Kinmen , a small Taiwanese island three miles from the Chinese coastline, but floundered at sea and was taken back to China by fishers.

In 2020, he fled again to Vietnam, but was later arrested and returned to China.

Zang Xihong, a Chinese dissident in Canada who uses the pen name Sheng Xue, has been in contact with Dong since his attempt to flee China for Thailand in 2015.

Zang spoke to Dong by telephone on Tuesday morning when he was being held by the coastguard in Taean, a county in western South Korea.

The coastguard released a statement on Wednesday confirming that a Chinese man in his 60s had been arrested and was being questioned on suspicion of immigration law violations, according to Reuters. The man was on a 3.3-metre boat with a 10-horsepower motor when he was spotted about 38 nautical miles off the coast.

Zang said that Dong travelled more than 30 hours by boat from Weifang in Shandong province on China’s eastern coast. The distance between Weifang and Taean is more than 300km (186 miles).

Zang said that Dong was “almost unconscious” by the time he reached South Korean waters.

She said she was not surprised that Dong had attempted 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 that willpower,” Zang said.

Dong was previously jailed between 2001 and 2004 for “inciting subversion of state power”. He has frequently run into trouble with the authorities because of his activism relating to 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 from the 1989 protests, who has been in contact with Dong for several years.

Dong’s journey mirrors that of Kwon Pyong, an ethnically Korean Chinese national who fled China for South Korea by jetski in 2023 . South Korean authorities charged him with illegally entering the country and he was not allowed to leave South Korea for nearly a year. He eventually resettled in the US.

Dong is thought to be hoping to resettle in Canada, where his family lives.

The Chinese and Canadian embassies in Seoul were approached for comment. A spokesperson for South Korea’s coastguard declined to comment.