{"id":60731,"date":"2023-12-24T19:00:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/dec\/24\/dissidents-escaping-china-xi-jinping-regime"},"modified":"2023-12-24T19:00:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T10:00:51","slug":"escaping-xis-china-by-paddleboard-i-rushed-into-the-water-and-thought-if-they-catch-me-they-catch-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=60731","title":{"rendered":"Escaping Xi\u2019s China by paddleboard: \u2018I rushed into the water and thought if they catch me, they catch me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dissidents face an uncertain future in Taiwan and South Korea after fleeing <\/p>\n<p>When Li Cheng En pushed his standup paddleboard off the Xiamen beach on China\u2019s Fujian coastline, a mother and son stood nearby, watching him. It was dark, and he moved quickly, but felt sure he\u2019d be caught. Li had 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt around 7.30pm, when I decided to go, I thought that there was no more choice for me,\u201d he says. He waited for the security guard shift change. \u201cI rushed into the water and thought that if they would catch me, they would catch me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/dec\/24\/dissidents-escaping-china-xi-jinping-regime\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dissidents face an uncertain future in Taiwan and South Korea after fleeing When Li Cheng En pushed his standup paddleboard off the Xiamen beach on China\u2019s Fujian coastline, a mother and son stood nearby, watching him. It was dark, and he moved quickly&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2626,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,53,727,74,42,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-human-rights","category-laos","category-taiwan","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2626"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60732,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60731\/revisions\/60732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}