SEOUL - South Korean authorities are questioning a Chinese national found in a rubber boat off the country’s west coast, amid reports identifying him as a dissident who has repeatedly tried to flee China.
The man was on a 3.3-metre boat with a 10-horsepower motor when he was spotted about 38 nautical miles off the west coast late on Monday by a fishing vessel whose crew alerted authorities, the Taean coast guard said in a statement.
He was arrested and is being questioned on suspicion of immigration law violations, it said.
The location where he was picked up was inside South Korean territorial waters, the statement said.
A coast guard official declined to confirm the name of the suspect and explain how he may have reached the location, but described him as a Chinese male in his sixties.
The time and circumstances of his arrest matched the case of a Chinese dissident identified by The New York Times as Dong Guangping, 68. A critic of the ruling Communist Party, Mr Dong had earlier escaped to Thailand and Vietnam and tried swimming to Taiwan — only to be sent back to mainland China each time.
He was jailed in China, prohibited from working after serving his sentence and barred from leaving, despite international calls to let him seek asylum elsewhere.
Two of Mr Dong’s friends and his lawyer told the Times that he arrived in Korean waters in a rubber boat late Monday.
The location where he was found is located roughly on the shortest straight line between South Korea and China of about 310 kilometres.
Officials at the Chinese embassy in Seoul could not be reached for comment with telephone calls diverted to a recorded message. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, asked about the issue at a regular briefing, said they had no knowledge of the matter.
In 2023, another Chinese national, who a South Korean activist said was fleeing authorities at home, was detained by South Korea’s coast guard after riding more than 300km on a jet ski with five containers of fuel.
Mr Dong was one of two Chinese dissidents arrested by Thai immigration officers in October 2015 and sent back to China, from which he had fled the year before.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees condemned the move at the time, saying Mr Dong had a “protection letter” from the agency and that he and his family had been accepted as refugees by Canada.
Mr Dong’s friends told the Times they hoped he would be able to join his family in Canada.
