On the 25th, the Chinese national who was caught by the Korea Coast Guard while attempting to enter the country illegally in a rubber boat off Taean, South Chungcheong, was confirmed to be Dong Guangping, 68, a well-known Chinese dissident and human rights activist.
Foreign media including the New York Times (NYT) and CNN reported on the 26th (local time) that Dong Guangping entered Korean territorial waters after crossing the Yellow Sea and was apprehended at sea off Taean, South Chungcheong, where he is being investigated on suspicion of violating the Immigration Act.
According to the Taean Maritime Police Station, at about 9:36 p.m. on the 25th, Dong Guangping was discovered by a fishing boat at work while riding a small rubber boat 3.3 meters long in waters about 18 kilometers northwest of Seogyeokbido, Taean, South Chungcheong. The Korea Coast Guard dispatched a patrol vessel to the scene and urgently arrested him.
Foreign media said Dong Guangping sailed more than 30 hours across the roughly 300-kilometer Yellow Sea and was in an exhausted state when found.
Dong Guangping is a representative dissident who has opposed the Chinese Communist Party system and called for political reform and improved human rights. While serving as a police officer in Zhengzhou, Henan province, he was dismissed in 1999 for taking part in a petition commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.
He was later detained by Chinese authorities after attending a Tiananmen memorial event in 2014 and tried several times to flee overseas, but each attempt failed. In 2015, he fled to Thailand and was recognized as a refugee by a U.N. human rights body, but that same year he was forcibly repatriated to China by Thai authorities.
After serving time on charges of inciting subversion of state power and being released in 2019, he attempted to escape by swimming to Taiwan, and was later arrested in Vietnam and sent back to China again. He is said to have been released in Oct. 2023 after serving time for illegal border crossing.
Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian journalist and human rights activist who is assisting Dong Guangping, said Dong referred to the case of Chinese human rights activist Quan Ping, who in 2023 attempted to reach Korea on a jet ski. Quan Ping was caught by the Korea Coast Guard off Incheon at the time, stayed in Korea, and went to the United States last year to seek asylum.
The Taean Coast Guard said, "We understand the person is the same as the one reported by foreign media," adding, "A pretrial detention warrant hearing is scheduled to be held on the 28th at the Daejeon District Court Seosan Branch." It continued, "He is currently receiving assistance from a lawyer affiliated with a Korean human rights group, and it is difficult to disclose specific details of the investigation as we are currently investigating."
CNN assessed that the case could pose a diplomatic burden for the South Korean government, which has worked to improve relations with China. The U.S. human rights group Human Rights in China (HRIC) urged the South Korean government to prohibit forcible repatriation, saying, "The very fact that a person nearing 70 had to cross the open sea in a small rubber boat is a devastating indictment of China's human rights reality."
As a party to the U.N. Refugee Convention, South Korea is expected to face debate over whether to apply the "non-refoulement principle," which prohibits sending a person to a country where there are concerns of political persecution, if Dong Guangping applies for refugee status.