South Korean Coast Guard announced on Wednesday, May 27th, that they had arrested a Chinese man off the west coast of Korea. Multiple media reports suggest that the individual may be a dissident who has made several attempts to flee China.
According to the statement by the Taean Coast Guard on the western coast of Korea, on Monday night, May 25th, a South Korean fishing boat discovered a rubber boat and the man about 38 nautical miles off the west coast of Korea and immediately reported it to the authorities. The rubber boat, approximately 3.3 meters (11 feet) long, was equipped with a 10-horsepower engine. The statement further mentioned that the man was arrested on suspicion of violating immigration laws and is currently under investigation.
An officer from the Coast Guard declined to confirm the suspect’s name or how he arrived at the location but indicated that he is a Chinese man in his 60s. Some self-media sources identified him as Dong Guangping, a Chinese dissident. The location where he was found is roughly about 310 kilometers away from the shortest straight-line distance between Korea and China.
The Guardian reported that the man is 68-year-old Dong Guangping. Starting from the coastal area of Weifang in Shandong, he endured approximately 30 hours at sea and was found nearly “unconscious” upon discovery. The report also mentioned that prominent Canadian democracy activist Sheng Xue had spoken with Dong Guangping over the phone.
Dong Guangping used to be a police officer. He was dismissed by the Chinese Communist Party for signing an open letter related to the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in late 1999. Between 2001 and 2004, Dong Guangping was imprisoned for three years on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” After his release, he continued his involvement in human rights activities. From May 2014 to February 2015, he was detained again for participating in the activities commemorating the June 4th incident.
Dong Guangping has made multiple attempts to escape from China, but each time he was prevented by the Chinese authorities in various ways or brought back to the mainland. In September 2015, Dong Guangping fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter, recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and resettled in Canada with government assistance. However, on October 28th of the same year, Chinese national security officials intervened in Bangkok and forcibly repatriated Dong Guangping and human rights activist Jiang Yefei.
After being coerced to “confess” on television, Dong Guangping was secretly interrogated and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal border crossing.” Following his sentencing, his wife and daughter were settled in Canada.
Dong Guangping was released in August 2019 but deprived of all rights. In December of the same year, he attempted to escape to Taiwan from the coastal city of Shishi in Fujian to evade local police surveillance and harassment but was unsuccessful. One account suggests he was kidnapped by Henan police through tracking and returned to his hometown, while another indicates that he was discovered by Chinese fishermen when swimming to Kinmen and brought back to China.
On January 5, 2020, Dong Guangping fled to Vietnam again and remained hidden in Hanoi, waiting for the Canadian refugee resettlement process. However, he went missing on August 24, 2022.
It was later revealed that Vietnamese authorities secretly arrested Dong Guangping at his residence in Hanoi and handed him over to the Guangxi border police, who then returned him to Zhengzhou, Henan, where he was sentenced to 11 months for “illegal border crossing.” Public opinion criticized Vietnam for deporting Dong Guangping, likening it to a gift to Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping during his visit to China.
There have been previous instances of daring escapes from China to Korea. On August 16, 2023, Chinese Korean rights activist Kwon Pyong rode a jet ski across the Yellow Sea, carrying five fuel drums and navigating with a compass and binoculars for about 300 to 400 kilometers, finally reaching near Incheon, Korea. Kwon Pyong got stuck on a sandbar and called for help, subsequently detained by the South Korean Coast Guard and charged with violating immigration laws.
In 2024, the Incheon District Court upheld the lower court’s ruling and sentenced the then 36-year-old Kwon Pyong to one year in prison with a two-year probation for violating immigration laws.
Kwon Pyong claimed that due to being previously imprisoned by the Chinese authorities for wearing a T-shirt mocking CCP leader Xi Jinping, he embarked on this journey out of fear of political persecution. However, Judge Lee Su-hwan dismissed his claim, questioning his motivation for leaving China using a jet ski. The judge stated, “He had visited Korea multiple times before for cross-dressing business; it’s hard to believe he did this out of desperation.” The judge also noted that Kwon Pyong did not mention political persecution as the reason for fleeing when questioned by the South Korean Coast Guard upon his arrival in Korea.
Kwon Pyong was eventually granted permission to leave Korea to seek asylum in the United States.