Fate of Chinese Dissident Who Escaped on an Inflatable Dingy Rests with South Korea, U.N.

Dong Guangping, a 68-year-old Chinese dissident, has spent the last eleven years trying unsuccessfully to escape his country’s oppressive communist regime.

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But Guangping’s supporters believe, for the first time in years, that there may be reason for hope as South Korean officials weigh his latest appeal for freedom.

Guangping departed China in an inflatable rubber boat on May 23, marking his fourth attempt to flee the political persecution he has experienced at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After 30 hours at sea, he was discovered off the coast of South Korea and detained by the Taean Coast Guard on charges of breaking immigration law.

Now, Guangping has secured meetings with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the South Korean Ministry of Justice; the two bodies will decide whether he must be deported to China, or if he can instead safely escape to Canada to join his family.

“South Korea is not known for helping Chinese refugees,” Zhou Fengsuo, executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China and co-founder of Humanitarian China, told National Review. “But Dong Guangping is a special case because he was recognized by the UN Agency while he was in Thailand years ago.”

Fengsuo is hopeful that Guangping will again be recognized as an immigrant by the United Nations and granted official refugee status. This would make it illegal for South Korea to deport him and, in turn, help him more easily secure safe passage from the country. Because Guangping’s ultimate aim is to reunite with his family in Canada, Fengsuo believes the short duration of his stay in South Korea could help his case.

Guangping has been a target of the CCP since the early 2000s, when he was arrested and imprisoned on charges that he was subverting state power by promoting democracy. He was freed in 2004 but arrested again in 2014 for his participation in a Tiananmen Square Massacre memorial, an event honoring those who had lost their lives during the brutal attack. His next arrest was in 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand, when he was attempting to flee China to Canada with his family, but was detained. 

Beijing-born, Canada-based activist Sheng Xue first learned about Guangping’s situation after his 2015 arrest. Xue serves as the vice president of the Federation for a Democratic China, the Canadian chairman of the Permanent Peace Partnership Association, and the vice president of the Canadian Coalition Against Communism. Xue successfully mobilized Canadian parliament members at the Department of Foreign Affairs to grant Guangping and his family permission to resettle in Canada at that time. Only Guangping’s family made it, however, since Guangping had been forcibly repatriated and imprisoned in China.

Since then, he has attempted numerous other escapes, detailed in NR’s previous reporting, and Xue has supported him throughout each one.

She was familiar with Guangping’s general plan to escape China by boat in recent weeks but not the specifics.

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“During his detention at the Taean Coast Guard Station in South Korea, he told me that he had originally planned to pilot the rubber boat to Japan” she told NR, noting that such a journey would be more than 700 kilometers at sea. “However, after traveling approximately 300 kilometers, the boat’s engine malfunctioned, his phone battery was nearly depleted, and he began to hallucinate due to utter exhaustion.”

As he neared the coast of South Korea, he became desperate, she says.

“Help me, call police,” he cried to several fishermen, as he later recounted to Xue. After an hour, the police arrived and brought him to the station.

“Upon arriving at the South Korean maritime police station, Dong tried to call my phone multiple times,” Xue said. Assuming the unfamiliar number was harassment from the Chinese Communist Party, a regular occurrence for Xue, she did not answer. He contacted another political dissident who had moved to the United States, Zhu Yufu, and Yufu reached out to Xue. “When I dialed back, the phone was answered by the South Korean police,” she recalled.

She updated the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs on his situation immediately.

“To my knowledge, the Canadian government promptly mobilized rescue operations,” she said. A lawyer was also chosen to represent Guangping and has met with him several times.

Xue has been able to stay in regular contact with Guangping since his arrival in South Korea.

“His most urgent and sole hope at present is to be granted permission as soon as possible to travel to Canada and reunite with his family, from whom he has been separated for many years,” she said.

There was a hearing on May 28 over Guangping’s case, and he was transferred from the coast guard station to a refugee shelter. A specific date for his video conference with the UNHCR and meeting with the South Korean Ministry of Justice were not given, but Xue sees it as progress.

She is determined to do all she can to make his dream of freedom a reality.

“This escape marks his fourth life-threatening ordeal. If repatriated, he may never walk out of prison or see light and freedom again,” she said. 

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