HONG KONG (AP) — A roughly 40-hour sea journey on a dinghy with a dying phone. Detention in South Korea. That’s just part of what Chinese dissident Dong Guangping endured to escape his native country. He arrived late last week in Canada, a destination he had eyed for more than a decade. Dong had been locked up in China several times, including for his activities commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and past efforts to flee. “It’s like living in a cage. Very suffocating,” he said in an online video interview with The Associated Press from Toronto, referring to the lack of freedom of expression in China. After his release from prison, the 68-year-old dissident said he was unable to receive retirement benefits or renew his passport and was under constant police monitoring. He attempted to flee at least three previous times: in 2015 to Thailand, where authorities deported him back to China; in 2019 when he tried to swim to a Taiwanese island off China’s east coast; and in 2020, when he reached Vietnam, only to be deported back again.Last month, he tried again.
‘No point fearing death’In the early hours of May 24, he set off in a gray rubber dinghy fitted with an engine from Weihai, a coastal city in eastern China’s Shandong province, under fine weather. He was eyeing Japan, confident that the government there would not send him back to China. But the next day brought fog. When he noticed his phone, which he relied on for GPS navigation, was on its last bar, he became terrified. His power bank also died. He quickly switched to his contingency plan — South Korea. Dong recalled that dread ran deep because his tiny boat might capsize if the winds and waves picked up. But he had no way to return and shook off the fear of death.
