'I must get out into the free world', dissident who fled China on boat tells BBC
www.bbc.com
Dong Guangping, who has resettled in Canada, recounts his perilous escape from China to South Korea.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10160735

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As the rubber boat he was on rocked through choppy waves, fear washed over Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, who had gone without sleep for two days.

The 68-year-old knew he was taking a huge risk trying to flee China by sea, but even then, he had underestimated the challenges of this journey.

He was badly sunburned, his phone was running out of battery, and his portable charger had gone flat. Apart from the sky and the sea, there were no landmarks around him. He could only hope that the digital compass would get him to South Korea before his phone went flat.

“Not being able to navigate would have been terrifying. I could have drifted back towards China,” Dong told BBC Chinese nearly two months after his perilous escape.

Forty hours after setting out from China’s eastern Shandong province, Dong was rescued by the coast guard and fishermen in Korean waters on the night of 27 May.

He was briefly detained in South Korea but has since resettled in Canada, where his family had been living.

…

“I can never survive in China,” said Dong, who spoke to BBC Chinese in a video call from Toronto.

“If I didn’t leave, I will never be at peace for the rest of my life. I had to show the Chinese Communist Party I was capable of leaving. They cannot stop me, they cannot control me.”

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Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed in China several times for his activism.

In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for “inciting subversion of state power”. He was jailed again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration event, according to Amnesty International.

Dong had fled China four times previously but was sent back each time. “But I have always held fast to one conviction: I must get out into the free world,” he tells BBC Chinese.

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In September 2015, he travelled to Bangkok with his wife and daughter, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and approved for resettlement in Canada.

But days before they were scheduled to leave for Canada, Thai authorities deported Dong to China, where he was jailed for “inciting subversion” and “crossing the national border illegally”. He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

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In May this year, with just a few hours of sailing practice, Dong started his journey in Weihai, Shandong, in a 3.3m long rubber dinghy equipped with an engine.

The poor weather conditions at sea prompted him to reroute and head towards South Korea, which is a closer destination.

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Dong was sent to a refugee centre in Incheon and later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese dissident to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist Kwon Pyong fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially detained on immigration charges but later resettled in the US.

Speaking about the moment when he found out his flight to Toronto was confirmed, Dong said he was “overcome with emotion holding the air ticket”.

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  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlEnglish
    23·
    6 天前

    Yes. It’s an incredibly easy way to filter out people who are saying what pays to be said, and people who are genuine. One cannot claim to care about human rights while ignoring the Apolocyple in Gaza livestreamed in 4k and perpetrated by the West.

    A prime example is famous China critic Ai Weiwei who I can take seriously because he actually walked the walk and got cancelled in the West as well.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ai-weiwei-says-west-lacks-moral-authority-criticise-beijing-rights-2026-01-29/

    Ai, speaking to Reuters in London, said he has previously argued that Western leaders visiting China should openly denounce the country’s human rights abuses before striking business deals with the world’s second-largest economy.

    “But today I changed my mind, completely,” Ai said. “The West (is) not even (in a) position to accuse China. (They must) just check on their record (of) what they did on international human rights, (their) freedom of speech record.”

    Ai’s remarks come as Keir Starmer makes a four-day visit to China, the first by a UK leader in eight years, aimed at improving relations despite concerns over espionage and human rights.

    Ai, in London hosting events for his new book “On Censorship”, said Western leaders raising issues such as human rights, free speech and censorship would be seen as deeply hypocritical and would “make people laugh”.

    Ai said he has also faced censorship in the West, including a London gallery’s decision to postpone one of his exhibitions in 2023 over a social media post about the war in Gaza.

    And while Ai does still criticize China for many things, some which are very valid because China isn’t some perfect utopia either, even he has recognized that a lot of stuff is simply pushed by Western think tanks to amplify anti-China sentiment while the West is actually much worse in many aspects.

    As for Frontline defenders, they pay “family support” and other stuff.

    providing family assistance for imprisoned HRDs or family members who are at risk because of a HRD’s activities.

    You bet that’s going to be instantly cut off whenever someone criticizes Israel. Meaning the critic in this article falls in line with Western think tanks and knows what he should and shouldn’t say to receive his paycheck.