A Chinese dissident's journey

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1:14Dong Guangping:You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

1:22Dong Guangping:Welcome to the fifth floor from the BBC World Service with me, Faranik Amidi.

1:31Dong Guangping:The BBC World Service broadcasts in 45 languages around the world. Our job here at the Fifth Floor is to bring you the best of those stories in English and also to get you closer to the extraordinary work our journalists do. Coming up, how the growing and chewing of the stimulant qat is altering lives in Yemen.

1:53Phoebe Kong:So I asked people to describe qat in one word. So the first one started by saying it's a stimulant. Another one said it's a refuge. Another one said it's my source of income. Another one said, you know, those who chukat, they see everything more beautiful. But we also have one voice who's saying this is a disaster that has fallen upon our country.

2:13Dong Guangping:But first, when Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, It kicked off a chain of events that led to him serving jail time and losing his job. But it also sparked the beginning of a deep desire to escape China and to live more freely. And Deng, now seen as a dissident by the authorities, began planning how he might escape China. Just a few weeks ago, back in late May, he finally achieved his dream, having taken the huge risk of crossing China's Yellow Sea in a dinghy to reach South Korean waters.

2:58Dong Guangping:I spoke to Phoebe Kong, based in the BBC's Hong Kong Bureau, and she explained how rare Dong's achievement really is.

3:06Phoebe Kong:Yeah, I think first of all, his experience is really fascinating. The fact that he crossed the sea all by himself. But to be very honest, like I have been covering China for more than a decade, Dong Guangping, to be frank, he's not like someone like a household named prominent activist in China, like compared to other more famous Chinese dissidents. But I think it's what he has gone through, like that makes his profile very unique and differentiate him from other activists.

3:39Dong Guangping:Tell us about who he is and why was he a target of the Chinese authorities?

3:44Phoebe Kong:Yeah, so Dong Guangping is now 68 years old, and he was a police officer in China back in the 80s and 90s for 13 years. So he was a public servant before he turned into a political activist in basically 1999. That was the 10th anniversary of the brutal gentleman's square crackdown in China. So in 1999, he tried to write articles and printed leaflets and distributed by himself. And that caught the attention from the authorities. So that basically got him fired from the police force. From that moment, he also mentioned that he changed his mentality, his view, like how to see the Chinese authorities and the regime and politics and so on.

4:33Phoebe Kong:So he also decided not to work for the state anymore and to participate in the political activism afterwards.

4:40Dong Guangping:So when you said he tried to write an article, he wrote an article. What kind of article was that? What was he saying in there?

4:47Phoebe Kong:It was something to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown. As I mentioned, that was the 10th anniversary of that crackdown. So that was like the reason why he started. But then he was jailed for inciting suppression because of those acts of activism. And he was jailed for more than once since he joined activism.

5:09Dong Guangping:We know that Dong tried to leave China a few times before. Tell us about his previous attempts. How did they go?

5:18Phoebe Kong:Like before the success, like to South Korea, he actually tried four times before and all of them failed. The first one was in 2015 when Dong fled to Thailand through the land borders from China to Laos and then to Thailand. And then actually he was granted refugee status by the UN back then. But then he was still deported by the Thai authorities to the Chinese authorities. After he was sent back to China from Thailand, he was sent to jail for subversion and also illegal entry, crossing the border, etc. And then in 2019, after he was released from jail, he tried to swing to Taiwan from the east coast of China.

6:06Phoebe Kong:But then he also failed because of his physical conditions. And eventually he was rescued by some fishermen, Chinese fishermen on the sea. And then in 2020, he tried another route to Vietnam, also crossing the land borders. But then he tried to stay and hide himself in Vietnam for a while before he was eventually deported by the Vietnamese authorities back to China. And then fourth time, he tried again to swim to Taiwan again. This time he grabbed an inflatable rift, something like that, to hold on that rift and then tried to swim to Taiwan. But again, he failed and then sent back to China.

6:47Dong Guangping:Swimming to Taiwan, what is that distance? Do you know?

6:51Phoebe Kong:I would say because there is a very remote island of Taiwan that was only two or three kilometers from the Chinese land. So it's like basically the closest point to get on Taiwan is around two to three kilometers.

7:07Dong Guangping:Yeah, but three kilometers is quite a lot if you're not a professional swimmer.

7:13Phoebe Kong:Yeah, but it was also some kind of open sea and, you know, the tide and waves and even the fact that he was over 60 back then. So that was something really a huge challenge for our own man to do it.

7:26Dong Guangping:This man was super determined to get out. And this latest journey he had across the Yellow Sea. Tell me about that.

7:36Phoebe Kong:Yeah, so after all those failures, he decided to try a new way, which is like to cross the Yellow Sea from China to... Originally, he planned to go to Japan, but then on the way at the sea, he found the weather conditions is not that desirable. And also, like, the batteries are running out for his phone and the power bank. So he changed his route on the sea, like to divert it to South Korea. And that was a new way because he told me that it was actually his first time to sail a rubber boat on open sea. Like that was his first time. So there are many unexpected situations that came up on his journey.

8:22Dong Guangping:Before we get into the details of what he told you about the journey, tell us why he was so determined to take this trip and to get to Canada.

8:33Phoebe Kong:Of course, as a political dissident in China for decades, he couldn't find a proper job. And even after he reached the age of 60, supposedly he was eligible for pension. But then he told me that he was told by the authorities that he's not allowed to apply for pension because of his jail term in the past. So, like, economically, it's hard for him. And also, he repeated again and again that, like, freedom means a lot to him, that he found it's nearly impossible for him to freely express and write articles and to, you know, express his ideas politically in China. So I think that the two reasons, those are the biggest strife for him to leave China, like, by all means.

9:26Dong Guangping:So when you spoke to Dong, what did he tell you about this successful journey, which took almost 40 hours?

9:35Phoebe Kong:Basically, he fled by a rubber boat. And then along with him, it was only his cell phone, some fuel for the rubber boat and also power banks. and he mentioned some dangerous scenes like on the sea that um he said like at one point that he was like staying awake for over 50 hours and he was so sleepy and then he didn't notice that he he actually fell asleep and then when he woke up he saw there is a huge cargo ship passing by like at this back so he said if he slept for 20 more seconds like then um his little rubber boats would have crashed on the big cargo ship and that would very probably that he would die down the sea and and interestingly he also say that like how he keeps himself awake on the sea is that like he brought some instant coffee powder and then whenever he felt sleepy and then he would just pour the instant coffee power into his mouth and then like maybe some water and then that's that's the coffee for him on on the sea and and also like um at the end he kind of like lost um the direction on the sea and then the weather is getting cloudy um and his phone is running out of battery he's um at the end he's only uh he only got a compass left so that was the main reason that he's like he thinks, okay, Japan is too far from me that I couldn't make it to Japan.

11:10Phoebe Kong:So let's go to South Korea, the closest land to him at that time. So it was really a very challenging and very dramatic journey.

11:18Dong Guangping:Yeah, incredible how he was also thinking on his feet, you know, making decisions under such stress. Yeah. How unusual is it for Chinese dissidents to flee the country through sea?

11:33Phoebe Kong:I would say it's extremely rare. In recent years, he's only the second one that took the same route to escape from China. Back in 2023, there was another Chinese dissident. He drove a jet ski to flee to South Korea, and he also made it. So that was the first successful case in the recent years that we have heard. And then Dong Guangping was the second one. I actually asked the same question to Dong in an interview. And then he said, this is not something that ordinary visitors can do because you need a lot of preparations. You have to prepare your physical conditions and all the gear, the boat, everything you need on the sea.

12:20Phoebe Kong:And also the mentality, he says, you need courage because he said he was prepared to die on the sea because he knows the risk that you're not going to seek any help if you encounter something really dangerous. So I think it's also the courage and that kind of boldness that is not really common for anyone that can try this route.

12:42Dong Guangping:And he's been granted asylum by Canada. Is that significant?

12:46Phoebe Kong:First of all, it's really significant for Dong Guangming himself because basically in the past decade or so, fleeing China and go to Canada was his biggest goal. Like that is almost the only thing he was working on in the past 10 years. So it was really a big achievement and something that come true for him. And also for the Chinese dissidents as a whole, I think his case, as I said, this is not something that could be copied or replicated easily.

13:22Dong Guangping:Don't try this at home, basically.

13:25Phoebe Kong:Yes, of course. But then I think his journey and his stories reflect from another perspective to tell us perhaps some kind of reality the Chinese citizens are facing, that they're willing to take such risky and like perhaps they could risk their life to flee China. Perhaps that tells us something about the human rights situation in China nowadays.

13:51Dong Guangping:So has he been forced to leave some family members behind, I assume?

13:56Phoebe Kong:Yeah, in the interview, Mr. Dong told me that before he left his home, like he visited his mother, who is 95 years old already. And it was to say goodbye to her before embarking his journey. And also his siblings and other family members remain in China. and he described that like he gave a hug to his 95-year-old mother like when he said goodbye, although like he didn't mention where he was planning to go or like his plan, that was not something that he can mention to his mother, but he said his mother has been really supportive to him like for the years that his mother understand the difficulties and the challenges he's facing back inside mainland China.

14:50Phoebe Kong:So he said now he successfully achieved his goal, which is leaving China. But then not being able to take a look after his elder mother would be one of his greatest regrets in his life, even though he's now safely resettled in Canada.

15:06Dong Guangping:And what about the Chinese authorities? Have they shown any reaction to this story?

15:12Phoebe Kong:Yes, they did, but like not really much. like the Chinese foreign ministry just briefly responded to his case by reiterating that the Chinese authorities handle citizens entry and exit affairs directly in accordance with the law and that all Chinese citizens must abide by the country's constitutions and laws so basically I think this is some kind of like minimal response to this case maybe part of the reason is also as I mentioned, Donny is not like someone super prominent, but that was what we have heard so far.