A Chinese critic of his country’s ruling Communist Party had already escaped to Thailand and Vietnam and tried swimming to Taiwan — only to be sent back to mainland China each time. He was jailed, prohibited from working and barred from leaving, despite international calls to let him seek asylum elsewhere.

一名批评中国共产党的中国人此前曾逃至泰国和越南，并尝试游泳前往台湾——结果每次都被送回中国大陆。尽管国际社会呼吁允许他前往其他地方寻求庇护，他仍遭到监禁、禁止工作和限制出境的惩罚。

Now the dissident, Dong Guangping, 68, is in custody in South Korea after escaping China by sea, two of his friends and his lawyer told The New York Times. They said he arrived in a rubber boat late Monday.

他的两名朋友和他的律师告诉《纽约时报》，现年68岁的异见人士董广平在通过海路逃离中国后，目前已被韩国警方拘留。他们表示，他于周一晚些时候乘坐一艘橡皮艇抵达。

Such journeys are extremely rare. In the last known case, a Chinese dissident, Kwon Pyong, traveled to South Korea from China on a jet ski three years ago.

这样的情况极其罕见。在已知的前一个案例中，中国异见人士权平三年前驾驶摩托艇从中国抵达韩国。

Coast Guard officials in Taean, a coastal county in western South Korea, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had detained a Chinese national who was spotted in an unidentified rubber boat by fishermen late Monday. A Coast Guard official said by phone that Mr. Dong’s last name and birth year matched those of the man in custody.

韩国西部沿海泰安郡的海警官员在周二的一份声明中表示，他们拘留了一名中国籍男子，该男子于周一晚些时候被渔民在一艘身份不明的橡皮艇上发现。一名海警官员在电话中表示，董广平的姓氏和出生年份与被拘留男子的信息相符。

The man was found in an 11-foot-long, light gray rubber boat attached to a 9.9-horsepower motor, the official said, adding that the authorities were investigating him on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

该官员表示，这名男子是在一艘长11英尺、配有9.9马力发动机的橡皮艇上被发现的，并补充说，当局正以涉嫌违反移民法的罪名对他展开调查。

Mr. Dong’s arrival in South Korea has not been previously reported.

董广平抵达韩国的消息此前未被报道。

His friends said they hope he will be able to join his family in Canada, a decade after that country granted him and his family permission to resettle. They see the case of the other activist, Mr. Kwon, as a potentially good sign. Mr. Kwon was convicted of unlawful entry and spent months in a South Korean jail but flew to the United States the following year to seek asylum.

他的朋友们表示，他们希望他能够前往加拿大与家人团聚，十年前该国已批准他及其家人在当地定居。他们从另一位活动人士权平的经历看到了一些希望。权平曾被判定犯有非法入境罪并在韩国监狱服刑数月，但次年便乘飞机前往美国寻求庇护。

One of Mr. Dong’s daughters, who lives in Canada, declined to comment through Sheng Xue, one of the two friends who confirmed his journey to South Korea. Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Seoul and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

董广平的一位居住在加拿大的女儿通过盛雪——证实其韩国之行的两位朋友之一——拒绝了置评请求。加拿大全球事务部、加拿大驻首尔大使馆以及中国外交部没有立即回应置评请求。

Kim Joo-kwang, the lawyer representing Mr. Dong in South Korea, said that he had been detained in Taean. Mr. Kim declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

在韩国代表董广平的律师金柱光（音）表示，董广平已在泰安被拘捕。他以调查正在进行为由，拒绝做出进一步评论。

Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian activist in Toronto, said that Mr. Dong called her three times after he arrived in South Korea. But she did not pick up because the phone showed an unknown number.

居住在多伦多的加拿大华裔活动人士盛雪表示，董广平在抵达韩国后曾给她打了三次电话。但由于电话显示为未知号码，她当时没有接听。

She then received a call from Zhu Yufu, a Chinese dissident and a mutual friend in Los Angeles, who told her that Mr. Dong was trying to call her. Mr. Zhu confirmed in a text message to The Times that Sheng Xue (a pen name for Zang Xihong), was helping Mr. Dong.

随后，她接到了目前身在洛杉矶的中国异见人士、两人的共同朋友朱虞夫的电话，朱虞夫告诉她董广平正试图联系她。在发给《纽约时报》的一条短信中，朱虞夫证实，盛雪（臧锡红的笔名）正在帮助董广平。

But by the time Sheng Xue finally got on the phone, she could not speak directly with him.

但当盛雪终于接通电话时，她未能直接与他通话。

She said she spoke by phone with a Coast Guard officer in South Korea, who told her that Mr. Dong had been detained there after arriving by boat. When the officer asked why he was there, she said that he was a human rights defender who had tried escaping China several times.

她说，她与韩国的一名海警官员进行了电话交谈，对方告诉她，董广平在乘船抵达后已被拘留。当该官员询问董广平为何前往那里时，她说他是一名维权人士，曾多次尝试逃离中国。

Mr. Dong was born in 1958 and raised in the household of a high-ranking official in Zhengzhou, a city in central China, Sheng Xue said. He worked as a police officer and a soldier before becoming a human-rights activist.

盛雪说，董广平生于1958年，在中国中部城市郑州的一个高级官员家庭长大。在成为维权人士之前，他曾担任过警察并当过兵。

He was fired from the police force in 1999 after signing a letter about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, human rights experts at the United Nations wrote in a letter in 2022. They said he was sentenced to three years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power,” a charge frequently leveled against dissidents and human rights lawyers.

联合国人权专家在2022年的一封信函中写道，1999年，他在一份关于1989年北京天安门广场大屠杀的信上签名后被开除出警察队伍。他们表示，他因“煽动颠覆国家政权罪”被判处三年徒刑，这是一项经常针对异见人士和维权律师的罪名。

In May 2014, the Chinese authorities detained and held him incommunicado for months after he participated in an event commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was arrested that July on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a criminal offense in China, and was released in February 2015, the U.N. experts wrote.

联合国专家写道，2014年5月，在他参加了纪念天安门广场大屠杀的活动后，中国当局将其拘留并单独关押了数月。他于当年7月以中国的一项刑事罪名“寻衅滋事罪”被捕，并于2015年2月获释。

Then he fled with his family in September 2015 to Thailand, where he received refugee status from the U.N. Human Rights Commission. But just before they were scheduled to fly to Canada the next month to be resettled there, the Thai police detained Mr. Dong along with another Chinese man, the experts said.

专家们说，随后他于2015年9月携家人逃往泰国，并在那里获得了联合国难民事务高级专员署授予的难民身份。但就在他们预定于次月乘飞机前往加拿大定居之前，泰国警方拘留了董广平以及另一名中国籍男子。

The Chinese state news media said at the time that the Chinese government had worked with the Thai authorities to return him to China that November.

中国官方媒体当时报道称，中国政府已与泰国当局合作，于当年11月将他送回中国。

He was sentenced to more than three years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegally crossing national borders” in July 2018. He was released in August 2019, Sheng Xue said, but he kept facing police surveillance and harassment, and he had limited financial resources.

2018年7月，他因“煽动颠覆国家政权罪”和“偷越国（边）境罪”被判处逾三年的有期徒刑。盛雪说，他于2019年8月获释，但一直受到警方的监视和骚扰，且经济来源有限。

That December, he evaded the local police and traveled to China’s southeastern coast and began swimming toward Kinmen, an island controlled by Taiwan, a self-governing democracy. But he floundered at sea.

当年12月，他摆脱了当地警方，前往中国东南沿海，并开始游向金门——由民主自治的台湾控制的岛屿。但他在海上陷入了困境。

“Save me, Sheng Xue!,” he told her in a phone call while trying to stay afloat after about eight hours at sea, she recalled. “I’m swimming to Taiwan,” he said.

盛雪回忆说，在海上漂浮了大约八个小时后，他一边奋力保持不下沉，一边给她打电话说：“盛雪，救我！我正在游向台湾。”

“Oh my god, swimming to Taiwan?” she said she told him. “That’s impossible.”

“天哪，游向台湾？”她说她当时对他说。“这不可能。”

She said she asked the Taiwanese authorities to rescue him, but he was eventually rescued by mainland Chinese fishermen. She said she asked him to take a selfie from the fishing boat as proof of life. He did.

她说她请求了台湾当局对他进行搜救，但他最终被中国大陆的渔民救起。她说她曾要求他从渔船上拍一张自拍照报平安。他照做了。

“The international community is calling on the mainland government to allow me to leave the country and reunite with my family,” he wrote in a text message to Sheng Xue at the time, according to a screenshot she provided to The Times. “It is precisely because I wanted to reunite with my family that I took this risk. They might sentence me again.”

根据她向《纽约时报》提供的一张截图，他当时在给盛雪的一条短信中写道：“国际社会正呼吁大陆政府允许我离境并与家人团聚。正因为我想和家人团聚，我才冒了这个险。他们可能会再次判我的刑。”

The fishermen eventually turned him over to a local police station, where officers escorted him back to his home in the central province of Henan, the U.N. experts said.

联合国专家表示，渔民最终将他移交给了当地派出所，那里的警员将他押送回了他位于中部省份河南的家中。

Mr. Dong again fled China in January 2020 by crossing into Vietnam, where he sent Sheng Xue a selfie from a taxi. He lived in hiding there for over two years, she said. But the Vietnamese authorities arrested him in August 2022.

董广平于2020年1月通过入境越南再次逃离中国，并在那里从一辆出租车上向盛雪发送了一张自拍照。她说，他在那里隐姓埋名生活了两年多。但越南当局于2022年8月逮捕了他。

Sheng Xue said that she learned from Mr. Dong’s family members in 2023 that he had been taken into Chinese custody again. She said that he was eventually released after at least a year in custody and returned to his home in Henan, but that he still had no income or pension.

盛雪说，她于2023年从董广平的家人处得知，他已再次被中国当局控制。她说，他在被关押了至少一年后最终获释并返回了河南家中，但仍然没有收入或退休金。

“He lost everything,” she said.

“他失去了一切，”她说。

So on Monday, she was not surprised to learn that he had escaped to South Korea. In fact, she said, he told her last year that Mr. Kwon’s earlier escape to South Korea by jet ski had inspired him.

因此，当周一得知他已逃往韩国时，她并不感到惊讶。实际上她说，他去年曾告诉她，权平此前骑摩托艇逃往韩国的事鼓舞了他。

After confirming that Mr. Dong had arrived, she contacted Canadian officials, asking them for help keeping him safe.

在确认董广平抵达后，她联系了加拿大官员，请求他们协助确保他的安全。

“Dong Guangping’s life experience tells us how much freedom means to one’s life,” she said.

“董广平的人生经历告诉我们，自由对一个人的生命而言究竟意味着什么，”她说。