A Chinese dissident who spent years in prison and detention for his activism has reached South Korea after making a dangerous 30-hour journey across the sea in an inflatable boat, according to CNN.
Dong Guangping, a former police officer from China, was rescued by the South Korean Coast Guard after fishermen spotted his boat near the country’s western coast on Monday. Dong has spent years trying to flee China and reunite with his family, who were granted asylum in Canada.
South Korean Coast Guard officials confirmed to CNN that an unidentified Chinese man in his 60s had been found at sea, though they did not officially release his identity because of privacy laws.
Chinese-Canadian activist Sheng Xue told CNN she spoke to Dong after he arrived in South Korea.
异见人士驾橡胶艇逃离中国在韩国登岸
现年68岁的董广平曾至少三次逃离中国，但每次都被遣返。他的朋友们希望这一次的结局会有所不同。
John Yoon
首尔 2026年5月26日… pic.twitter.com/62es8sYbZO— 盛雪SHENG Xue (@ShengXue_ca) May 26, 2026
“For a long time, we discussed ways to escape China,” she said.
According to Sheng, Dong left from Weihai in China’s Shandong province and spent more than 30 hours at sea before reaching South Korean waters.
“When I talked with him, he said ‘I got here!’. He was pretty proud of it,” she recalled.
Dong reportedly told her that the engine of his inflatable boat broke down as he neared Taean county in western South Korea. He had not slept for two days and was close to collapsing.
“He was lucky to get close to the shore,” Sheng said. “It [was] a small boat on the sea, so it’s very hard to control.”
Years Of Failed Escape Attempts
Dong, 68, once worked as a police officer in Zhengzhou in central China. According to CNN, he lost his job after signing a letter marking the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
He was jailed for three years in 2001 over activism and arrested again in 2014 for taking part in another Tiananmen memorial event, Amnesty International said, according to CNN.
In 2015, Dong fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter and applied for refugee protection through the United Nations. While his family was eventually allowed to move to Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong back to China despite appeals from rights groups and his relatives.
He was later sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
After his release in 2019, Dong made more attempts to escape China. CNN reported that he once tried to swim to Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island located close to China’s coast.
In 2020, he crossed into Vietnam illegally but was arrested there and deported back to China in 2022. He was later sentenced to 11 months in prison for “illegal border crossing.”
His daughter, Katherine Dong, had earlier said her father kept trying to flee because “his dream of being reunited with family was so strong.”
“And then again that dream of freedom was snatched away,” she said. “I know that in China he will face more persecution, more mistreatment, more injustice.”
Pressure Mounts On South Korea
Rights groups are now urging South Korea not to send Dong back to China.
Human Rights in China said Dong had spent more than a decade trying to gain freedom and reunite with his family.
“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,” the group said.
According to CNN, Dong has currently been arrested on suspicion of violating immigration laws, and his case will be handed to prosecutors.
The case could also become politically sensitive for South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, whose administration has been trying to improve ties with Beijing.
Sheng Xue said she has contacted Canadian authorities about Dong’s situation and appealed to South Korea not to deport him.
“Given his history, any forcible repatriation would place him at grave risk of imprisonment, torture, disappearance, and potentially death,” she wrote in a letter quoted by CNN.
