A Chinese dissident has made a daring 30-hour sea journey from China to South Korea, marking his fourth attempt to escape authorities in his homeland and reunite with his family, who have been granted asylum in Canada.
Higashi Kohei, a former police officer who faced years of imprisonment and detention for his activism, escaped using a rubber boat and was arrested by South Korea’s coast guard on Monday, his lawyer and fellow activist told CNN.
Dong has also been granted asylum in Canada, but he previously fled to Thailand and then Vietnam, but it emerged that authorities in those countries had detained him and deported him to China, sparking distress for his family and criticism from rights groups and United Nations officials.
His arrival in South Korea could put pressure on the government of President Lee Jae-myung, who took office last year and has sought to reset the country’s often volatile relationship with China.
South Korean Maritime Police authorities confirmed on Monday night that fishermen had spotted the unidentified fishing boat and alerted authorities.
The Coast Guard told CNN that the person on board was a Chinese man in his 60s, but declined to identify him under the country’s privacy laws.
Dong’s lawyer, Kim Ju-kwang, confirmed Dong’s identity to CNN, but said he could not provide further details because the maritime police investigation is ongoing.
Chinese-Canadian activist Shen Xue said she had spoken to Dong by phone since he arrived in South Korea, adding that the coast guard had also confirmed Dong’s identity to her.
“We’ve been talking about how to get out of China for a long time,” she told CNN.
Dong told Sheng that the ship had spent more than 30 hours at sea after leaving Weihai, a coastal city in China’s eastern Shandong province.
“When I talked to him, he said, ‘I’m here!’ He was so proud of that,” she recalled.
He said the boat’s engine failed as it approached the coast of Taean County in western South Korea. Shen said he hadn’t slept for two days and was on the verge of fainting when he arrived in South Korean waters.
“We were lucky to be able to get close to shore,” she said. “It was a small ship at sea, so it was very difficult to control.”
Chinese human rights group Human Rights called on South Korea to protect Dong and not to send him back.
“For more than 10 years, he has continued to strive for freedom and reunification with his family,” the group said. “The fact that a nearly 70-year-old man was forced to cross the open sea in a small rubber boat is in itself a devastating indictment of China’s human rights record.”
CNN has reached out to the Canadian and South Korean foreign ministries and the Chinese embassy in Seoul for comment.
Dong, 68, worked as a police officer in the city of Zhengzhou in central China’s Henan province until he was fired for co-signing a letter commemorating the 10th anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters.
Amnesty International said he was jailed for three years for his activism in 2001 and rearrested in May 2014 for taking part in another commemoration ceremony for the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
In 2015, Dong fled to Thailand with his wife and daughter, where they applied for refugee status at the United Nations.
His wife and daughter were able to immigrate to Canada, but Dong was forcibly returned to China by Thai authorities at the time, despite appeals from his family and human rights groups. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and released in 2019.
Forbidden to leave the country, Dong unsuccessfully tried to swim to Kinmen Island, which is under Taiwanese rule and is located several kilometers off China’s east coast.
He was able to enter Vietnam illegally in 2020, but was eventually arrested and returned to Vietnamese authorities in 2022. He was sentenced to 11 months in prison in China for “illegal border crossing” and was released in October 2023, according to the international human rights group Frontline Defenders.
During Dong’s disappearance at the time, his family in Canada made public appeals for his whereabouts, including delivering letters to the Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Ottawa.
His daughter Katherine Dong previously said she had tried to flee China many times “because she had a strong dream of reuniting with her family.”
“And once again my dream of freedom was taken away,” she said at the time. “I know that in China he will face more persecution, more abuse, more injustice.”
Dong’s family, through Shen and other friends, declined to comment on his recent escape.
In recent years, China has ramped up its crackdown on protests and political opposition through sophisticated censorship and surveillance through facial recognition and other artificial intelligence tools.
This has led some Chinese dissidents to take more unconventional escape routes, bypassing neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, which have a mixed record of protecting Chinese dissidents.
In August 2023, Chinese dissidents crossed some 400 kilometers (250 miles) of sea from eastern China’s Shandong province to the South Korean port city of Incheon on jet skis.
The man, believed to be Chinese activist Kwon Pyong, made the daring crossing carrying only a helmet, binoculars, a compass and five 25-liter (6.6-gallon) fuel tanks strapped to a jet ski, according to the South Korean Coast Guard.
Canada has a long track record of providing refuge to Chinese dissidents.
Many Chinese activists have also found safety in the United States over the years. But that path has been narrowed by the Trump administration’s sharp restrictions on the number of refugees allowed into the country each year, with the exception of white South Africans.
It is unclear whether Mr. Dong plans to apply for refugee status in South Korea, which is notorious for its strict immigration policies, including seeking asylum.
Maritime police told CNN that Dong was arrested on suspicion of violating immigration laws and will be transferred to prosecutors.
Sheng said he has sent a letter to Canada’s Department of International Affairs regarding Dong’s case, asking South Korean authorities not to send him back to China.
“Given his background, any deportation would place him at grave risk of imprisonment, torture, disappearance, and possibly death,” she wrote in a letter to Global Affairs Canada.
CNN’s Ivan Watson contributed to this report.
