SEOUL, May 27 (Reuters) – South Korean authorities are questioning a Chinese national found in a rubber boat off the west coast, the coast guard said on Wednesday, with a media report identifying him as likely to be a dissident who had repeatedly tried to flee China.
The man was on a 3.3-metre (11-ft) 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 the circumstances of his arrest matched the case of a Chinese dissident identified by the New York Times as Dong Guangping, who it said had previously escaped to Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan only to be sent back to China each time.
The location where he was found is located roughly on the shortest straight line between South Korea and China of about 310 km (193 miles).
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 300 km on a jet ski with five containers of fuel.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in BeijingEditing by Ed Davies)
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