(The Washington Stand) — The Chinese Communist regime’s ongoing crackdown on Christians and other faiths is not only a human rights issue but is a threat to U.S. national security, religious freedom advocates warned during a congressional hearing last Thursday.
During a Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist advocates all testified to the brutal repression that ordinary Chinese citizens are facing merely for attempting to practice their religious faith. Former senator and international religious freedom ambassador Sam Brownback noted that despite the Xi Jinping regime’s imprisonment of 10 Catholic bishops and countless other Christians, the Communist government “has not paid a dime” for its religious freedom abuses even though it has been officially designated as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) by the U.S.
Grace Jin Drexel, the daughter of imprisoned Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, also testified. Pastor Jin along with 21 other Zion Church pastors and workers were arrested in a wide-ranging operation last month across nine provinces and municipalities in China. The non-state-sanctioned house church had grown to 10,000 members and was viewed as a threat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) simply for not agreeing to have its property monitored by government-controlled cameras.
As Drexel recounted, she herself has become a target of the CCP despite her American citizenship, with the Communist regime subjecting her to transnational harassment with threatening phone calls from purported U.S. federal agents and CCP operatives harassing and following her in the streets of Washington, D.C. She further pointed out that the CCP’s justification for its widespread persecution of underground churches is over allegedly subverting the state. But Drexel pointed out that believers are not trying to subvert the state but are “merely asking to be free from the Communist Party” while they practice their religion.
Bob Fu, who serves as founder and president of the Christian human rights group ChinaAid, also testified. As he explained afterward during “Washington Watch,” the Xi Jinping regime’s persecution of religious believers has now entered into a new phase.
“[T]he CCP under this dictator, Xi Jinping, has launched a war against the faith,” he emphasized. “Instead of the old paradigm of controlling Christian churches and other independent religions in the past, now they [have] launched the all-out war to eliminate any independent Christian churches and even … the thoughts of independence and other religious minorities as well.”
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Fu continued, “When Xi Jinping took power, he launched three or four wars. [The first] war [was] against the cross and the forced demolition of the cross campaign. All of a sudden, the wooden cross was declared as the enemy of the state, as a national security threat. It really shows how fragile, actually, how fearful this militaristic, atheistic regime [is], and thousands of crosses were taken down. If you don’t take down the cross voluntarily — these are government sanctioned churches — the pastors were even arrested. Some were sentenced to 12 to 15 years imprisonment. And then [there was] the war against the Bible, especially the access of the Bible to children. Millions of Chinese Christian children were ordered to sign a Communist party-prepared form to renounce their faith in public, and the Bible was totally forbidden to be in the hands of the Chinese children. And then, of course, the [current] war against the Christian leaders.”
Fu, who also serves as senior fellow for international religious freedom at Family Research Council, went on to detail the extent of the CCP’s crackdown on Christian leaders.
“[T]wo days ago, all 18 of the criminally detained [Zion Church leaders] were formally arrested,” he reported. “That means they will go to trial and face a long sentence. And the CCP even criminalized the tithes and offerings — [a] Christian practice for centuries. Many pastors were arrested for simply receiving or organizing the tithing and offering of the church. The pastor Yang Rongli and her husband received 15 years and nearly 10 years, respectively … and other pastors also received various years of sentence for being accused of fraud. So this [is] the new trend.”
Fu further highlighted how the Communist regime’s religious crackdown has turned into a transnational operation that threatens America’s national security, which he has personally experienced.
“[W]e have seen [that] the Communist Party is not satisfied by just controlling the churches and synagogues and mosques and Buddhist temples inside China, but they also extend their long arms overseas [to] American soil by establishing their overseas police stations,” he observed. “[CCP operatives] surrounded my own home in West Texas and forced my whole family into exile from [our] home for three months back [in] 2020. Their only purpose [was] to intimidate and to silence our voice for freedom for the persecuted brothers and sisters and many Chinese pastors, even in the U.S.”
Fu concluded by requesting prayer for the persecuted Chinese faithful. “[P]ray for those who are imprisoned and … also pray for their family members,” he urged. “[S]ome of the family members have been arrested … were still breastfeeding their babies. And some lost their homes and became homeless after their father or mother [was] arrested and their bank accounts were frozen. I think we should also know their names.”
This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.
