Chinese Dissident Who Fled to South Korea by Rubber Boat Lands in Canada

A Chinese political dissident who escaped to South Korea from China on an inflatable rubber boat last month said on Saturday that he had arrived in Canada, ending a treacherous and decade-long journey to secure his freedom.

Dong Guangping, 68, arrived in Toronto late Friday, he told The New York Times in a video interview from the home of his longtime friend Zang Xihong, a Chinese activist who goes by the pen name Sheng Xue and helped to coordinate his journey.

“I’m very happy,” Mr. Dong said, speaking in his first interview after arriving in Canada. “Sitting here now, it feels like I’ve come home.”

Sheng Xue, who lives in Canada and appeared on the video call, shared photographs with The Times of Mr. Dong arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The Canadian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Dong had made several attempts to escape China, where he was imprisoned multiple times after activism that criticized the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Even when he was out of prison, he was dismissed from his job, lived under constant police surveillance and faced an exit ban, according to human rights experts.

In 2015, Mr. Dong fled with his wife and daughter to Thailand, where he received refugee status from the United Nations refugee agency and was approved for resettlement in Canada. But the Thai police detained him and sent him to China days before they were scheduled to fly to Canada, human rights experts said. His wife and daughter went without him.

In late 2019, he swam from China toward an island controlled by Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, and nearly drowned. He was eventually rescued by mainland Chinese fishermen.

The following month, he fled to Vietnam, where he lived in hiding for over two years, according to Sheng Xue. But he was then arrested and returned to China.

Mr. Dong’s friends hoped that his recent escape across the Yellow Sea to South Korea would end differently — and they were right.

After he traveled about 200 miles in an 11-foot-long rubber boat in late May, he was rescued by fishermen and detained by South Korean coast guard officials. Prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for Mr. Dong, but a judge denied it late last month, he said. The authorities later allowed him to leave the country and reunite with members of his family in Canada, he added.

Kim Joo-kwang, the lawyer who represented Mr. Dong in South Korea, said on Saturday that he could not comment. A spokesman for the South Korean court that handled Mr. Dong’s case could not immediately be reached.

The Chinese authorities did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday, but a Chinese foreign ministry official said at the time of Mr. Dong’s arrival in South Korea that officials in China were not aware of his situation.

Mr. Dong’s case follows a precedent set two years ago by Kwon Pyong, a Chinese dissident who fled to South Korea by jet ski. While Mr. Kwon faced months of legal limbo and detention before being permitted to leave in 2024, his experience inspired Mr. Dong’s recent escape, according to Sheng Xue.

Mr. Dong said from Canada on Saturday that he hoped to keep working on a cause he began chasing in 1999, when he signed a letter about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing that angered the Chinese authorities.

“It is necessary to achieve constitutional democracy in China,” he said. “I treat this as what I need to do for the rest of my life.”

This is a developing story.