Chinese Consulate Worker Recounts Escape to Freedom

'Outside of the gates is the free world, but you just cannot get out'

A runner exercises along Tamaki Drive on Auckland's waterfront in Auckland, New Zealand, on Aug. 24, 2021. Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

It has been five years since Dong Luobin told New Zealand police “If you send me back to the consulate I will die.” A staff member at the Chinese consulate in Aukland, Dong successfully escaped and applied for asylum. His escape is believed to be the first defection of a foreign government employee in New Zealand since the Cold War, and possibly the only one to date.

At the time, Dong was 34 and working in the back office of the Chinese consulate. Although his position was not high, he was well-paid and well-dressed. However, despite appearances, he was a virtual prisoner. Inside the compound with its barbed-wire topped wall, Chinese staff were closely monitored and controlled. Knowing that freedom was just a few steps away from the consulate’s oppressive environment was painful.

Dong shared his experience with The Epoch Times. Although he was granted asylum in 2018, his story was shelved due to security concerns. Only recently did he go public with his experience.

Witness to Brutal Suppression

Dong was born in 1984 in a rural village in China’s Hebei Province, to a Roman Catholic family. Luobin is actually a Chinese transliteration of his Christian name “Robin.” As a child, he witnessed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) violent persecution of Catholics.

When Dong was five years old, the church in his village was brutally attacked by the CCP authorities. He said: “Due to our history, more than 80 percent of the people in our village were Catholics. Our village was persecuted because the CCP wanted to bring all Catholicism and Christianity under the control of its ‘Three-Self Patriotic Movement’ and the ‘Catholic Patriotic Association.’ They wanted to tear down our existing church, built by Western missionaries, and build a new, CCP-approved church, with a CCP-appointed priest. The villagers resisted the CCP’s suppression of their faith. Without providing proper cause, the regime found an excuse to demolish their church by force.”

In China, the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” and the “Catholic Patriotic Association” are the only legal avenues for Protestants and Catholics, respectively, to practice their faith. Chinese who join the approved Catholic Patriotic Association ostensibly have freedom to worship, but in reality, are subject to censorship and strict control by the atheist CCP.

Dong described the villagers’ resistance—and the regime’s savage response: “At first, they sent the riot police, but the people from the village were united against such oppression. So they sent in the military later, imposed a curfew, and surrounded the entire village. People were only allowed in, but not out. If you [tried] to leave, they would shoot you.

“I was only five years old when that brutal suppression happened, but I remember clearly that the military told us to put our hands behind our backs and not to move a muscle. We watched the armed police and the military beat the parishioners, including our priest. During the day, they used bricks and sticks to beat them. If you [came] out at night and [broke] the curfew, you’d get shot. One man was shot several times and hid in the pig’s den to survive. He is still alive today.

“There was a priest, and the parishioners wanted to protect him. So the soldiers beat the parishioners in the priest’s courtyard. Those who faint[ed] and could not move were piled on top of each other. Some of them died. Others were left disabled. The blood flowed from the courtyard to the outside.”

Dong continued, “When I was in my 20s, I learned from the people of that generation that the hospitals were ordered not to treat the parishioners who had been injured. One church leader could have been treated, but the CCP knew that he was the leader of the resistance so they persecuted him. The man eventually was left in a vegetative state and lay in bed for over 20 years until his death. I saw this church leader several times, and he looked almost just skin and bones.”

Suppression of Humanity

Stories of the brutal incident were told in the village, but few outsiders were aware of it.

At the time, Dong was too young to comprehend the events; it was only as an adult that he fully understood what had happened. However, the violent suppression left a deep impression. The older he got, the more he felt the suppression of his humanity, he said.

Like millions of other Catholics who have refused to join the Catholic Patriotic Association, his family practiced their faith through the underground Catholic Church.

“As I grew older,” he recounted, “I realized that we could only go to church in other people’s homes and could not attend openly. The priests had to leave in a hurry after Mass, not daring to stay for a moment longer and always going through the back door. At Christmas, Easter, and other major festivals, the priests in the village would be summoned by the authorities. We often had to invite priests from other parishes to lead the Mass in the middle of the night even when it was extremely cold.

“Not only that, but the universal values I had been taught, such as fraternity, love, consideration for others, and forgiveness for your enemies, suddenly appear[ed] to be not accepted in society when I [became] older. On the contrary, people think there is something wrong with you. This kind of oppression is hard to understand for ordinary people.”

Life Without Privacy

When Dong was 28, he was nearly arrested for an article he published online.

He recalled: “Once I posted an article on QQ [Chinese social media] about the current state of the church and social issues in China, at approximately 9 o’clock at night. It was almost midnight when I suddenly heard a lot of cars and noises at the apartment entry downstairs. I was lying down to rest, but I start to sweat and realized I was in danger.

“However, they didn’t arrest me. I found out sometime later from an elder in the village that they were going to arrest me that night because of my article. The elder vouched for me, and I was spared. That’s when I realized that there was no freedom of expression at all on the internet in China.

“Later, when I got [Chinese messaging app] WeChat, I would post some articles that reflected on the current situation of Chinese society, but I noticed that they were quickly deleted. Within a few hours of posting them, they were all gone; even other stuff I wrote was gone. We were living without any privacy. All this had sowed the seeds of my escape later on. At that time, my desire to leave China was already very strong. I thought about it every now and then how and when can I leave the country.”

Sooner or later, Dong thought to himself, he would disgrace the CCP through his actions.

No Different Than China

In 2016, Dong had an opportunity to work at a service center under China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After two years there, Dong was sent to the Chinese consulate in New Zealand.

In March of 2018, Dong arrived in Auckland. He soon realized that working in New Zealand did not mean more freedom. As soon as he left the airport, his passport was confiscated by consulate staff. He had barely eaten his first meal there when his superiors announced “disciplinary rules” for the new arrivals.

Workers were not allowed to leave the compound alone, or even in groups of two.

Dong explained: “There must be at least three to keep an eye on each other. Every time I [went] out of the consulate, there were four to six, or sometimes dozens of people. It [was] always a group activity.

“When you’re out of the consulate, you’re not allowed to have any contact with the outside world, and if you [got] caught doing so, the consequences were severe. A recent example was reported in all Chinese diplomatic missions around the world. One of the embassy’s office staff spoke a few words with a local Chinese-speaking person outside of the embassy and was noticed by the embassy’s military attaché. That person he spoke to was from Taiwan, and the office staff was immediately fired and repatriated back to China.”

Dong found that he did not even have freedom of thought.

He recalled: “You [would] be shown some CCP propaganda films every week, and you [would] be brainwashed continuously to enhance the so-called ‘ideological training.’

“The consulate staff’s work and life were all inside the walls of the consulate, and they weren’t allowed to read local newspapers or browse overseas websites. Our cell phone SIM cards were given to us by the consulate, and the internet was all set up with Chinese equipment. Each office had a different code. The Consul General also said that all of our activities here were monitored. So to me, it was no different, or even worse, than back in China.”

Dong knew that employees from other ministries also worked in the consulate, but “you [wouldn’t] really know what were their jobs even if they [told] you their positions in the consulate. So there were probably spies and secret agents. We all had different jobs, and we were expected to supervise each other. They wanted to create this kind of atmosphere where people were very nervous about what they might say or do.”

Dogs Have More Freedom

To outsiders, his life looked comfortable, Dong said. “Our jobs seemed to be very decent, and we [were] always well-dressed. However, whether you’re a logistician or a diplomat, you weren’t living a normal human life.”

“You know very well that outside of the gates is the free world, but you just cannot get out.”

One day, Dong experienced a pivotal moment. One of his superiors commented, “Chinese people have less freedom than foreign dogs.”

“Dog” is often a derogatory term in Chinese culture. Hearing the diplomat express that the lowest of the low in the Western world had more freedom than common people in China, Dong made up his mind to escape.

The opportunity came on May 7, 2018. Dong had been questioned: he had left the compound secretly to attend Mass, and his absence had been noticed. Coincidentally, that morning he had been given his passport temporarily so he could obtain his New Zealand driver’s license. He saw his chance.

Dong walked out of the consulate without looking back. He knew very well he would never be able to return.

After his escape, not only did CCP authorities hunt for him, his family in China was questioned and harassed.

His wife raised their children alone in China. After more than four years of hardship, his whole family was finally reunited in New Zealand. Now that his family is together again, Dong tells his story to help others understand the importance of freedom.