When Li Chengen (李承恩) in January pushed his standup paddleboard off the Xiamen beach on the coast in China’s Fujian Province, a mother and son stood nearby, watching him. It was dark, and he moved quickly, but felt sure he would be caught, he said in Taipei during an interview with the Observer that was published on Sunday.
Li said he spent the day scouting for a secluded beach from which he could launch his bold plan to flee China, but everywhere he went there were fences or security guards and cameras.
“At about 7.30pm, when I decided to go, I thought that there was no more choice for me,” he said.
Photo: CNA
He waited for the security guard shift change.
“I rushed into the water and thought that if they would catch me, they would catch me,” he said.
Li entered the heavily guarded waters that span the shortest distance between Taiwan and China. As a surfer, he said he was confident on the board and the water was calm, but it was January, and cold.
He passed by what he said were Chinese alarm systems, setting one off.
“It started blaring. I became very nervous at that moment, and I paddled away from that location as fast as I could,” he said.
Hours later, he could sense land in front of him. He arrived on an empty island beach in Kinmen County, about 5km from China.
“When I arrived at the Kinmen beach, the wave knocked me off the board, but at the same time, I saw the blue tears, it was so beautiful,” he said, referring to the seasonal phenomena of bioluminescence. “Each wave carried blue light and it made me really happy to see it.”
A quietly spoken middle-aged man, Li is now living legally, but temporarily, in Taiwan, restricted from working or leaving the capital area.
Li is not his real name, which he asked not to be used for fear of repercussions for his family in China.
The Observer has verified parts of his story through court documents, GPS tracking of his journey and Chinese media reports.
Li is among a growing list of dissidents fleeing the increasingly authoritarian rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Under Xi, the Chinese Communist Party authorities have cracked down on lawyers, counter-culture groups and human rights campaigners. Many have been imprisoned or had exit bans placed on them, preventing them from leaving the country and forcing them to flee by less conventional means.
Earlier this year, Lu Siwei (盧思位), a Chinese former human rights lawyer, fled over the border to Laos, but was detained by Laotian police while trying to board a train to Thailand and was deported back to China.
In August, a Xi critic, Kwon Pyong (權平), fled China by jetski to South Korea, towing barrels of fuel behind him.
In September, rights advocate Chen Siming (陳思明) traveled via Laos and Thailand before boarding a plane that made a stopover in Taiwan.
He refused to reboard and spent two weeks living in a transit lounge at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport before flying on to Canada for asylum.
In China, Li brought litigation suits against local authorities to defend community rights and campaigned for human rights causes, including in Hong Kong and Myanmar. He has been questioned, detained and fined.
He said that friends who campaigned with him have recently been jailed and he is still under investigation for “subversion of state power.”
“The sentence would be four to 15 years, so I didn’t think I could stay in China any longer,” he said.
So he left.
Li’s arrival in Kinmen went undetected and he said he walked for an hour until he found someone to take him to a police station where he could turn himself in.
Court documents showed that the Coast Guard Administration confiscated two phones, one life jacket, one standup paddleboard and a paddle.
He spent three months in detention.
The Kinmen District Court found he had contravened immigration and customs laws, and sentenced him to time served.
He is now living in the community, but cannot support himself and said that non-governmental organizations have provided assistance, but it would end soon.
His passport has expired.
While he said that some third countries have told him he can travel to them, they would not allow it without valid documents.
Li has not spoken of his journey publicly before and has been advised not to, but he feels it could help him.
“My family is my biggest concern. The police still go to visit them and pressure them,” he said. “They even showed my family the photos and videos they had of me on the beach in Xiamen when I was about to leave, to warn them.”
Staying in Taiwan is almost impossible. There is no office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the nation.
Taiwan recently decriminalized arriving unlawfully to seek political asylum, but it has no refugee program and local governments are sensitive to community fears about Chinese infiltration.
Authorities can make case-by-case assessments and have assisted some Hong Kongers to resettle, but the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said that no Chinese national has been granted the right to reside as a “refugee” on a long-term basis “due to the abstract concepts of requirements and stringent conditions” imposed by regulations.
Li hopes a third country would let him travel to its borders so that he can claim asylum, resettle and bring his family out of China.
“Taiwan’s government won’t solve this problem for me and the third countries also think that this is beyond their responsibilities,” he said.
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