Why China’s crackdown on underground church pastors has irked the US

A Christian pastor, along with dozens of church staff and members, has been arrested, prompting rebuke from the United States. The arrest of Jin Mingri, the pastor of one of China’s largest underground churches, comes amid a renewed crackdown on religion in the Asian country.  

The detentions also take place amid tensions between the US and China, especially over trade. Last week, President Donald Trump threatened a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese imports. On the other hand, Beijing has tightened export controls on rare earths and other materials critical for advanced tech production.  

Let’s take a closer look.

Chinese pastors arrested

Chinese authorities have reportedly arrested 30 leaders of one of the country’s largest underground church networks after overnight raids in various cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, last week.

Pastor Jin Mingri, who founded Beijing Zion Church, was among those arrested.

The 56-year-old was detained on Friday at his home in the city of Beihai in southeast Guangxi Province, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the US, told NPR.

“It’s been extremely shocking and … very scary for our family,” Jin Drexel said. “But we also have faith in the Lord and we know that he [Ezra Jin] is doing God’s work."

According to the US-based non-profit ChinaAid, Jin was arrested after 10 officers searched his home.

Sean Long, a US-based pastor and spokesperson for Zion Church, told NPR that over 30 pastors and church staff were arrested or became unreachable by family beginning Thursday (October 9).

Some of them are facing criminal charges, he said, including for “illegal dissemination of religious information via the internet."

Long said, citing witnesses, that police had a “wanted list” and were violent during arrests. A female pastor was forcefully separated from her newborn baby, he alleged.

“We strongly appeal to the global church society to hold the Chinese government accountable,” Long said. “They cannot do whatever they want without letting people know. Let our ministers and staff members be released as soon as possible. Stop arresting our members."

“Such systematic persecution is not only an affront to the Church of God but also a public challenge to the international community,” Zion Church said in a statement.

ChinaAid called the detention of pastors and church staff unprecedented, and the “most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution” against Christians in more than four decades.

“This new nationwide campaign echoes the darkest days of the 1980s, when urban churches first re-emerged from the Cultural Revolution,” ChinaAid’s founder Bob Fu said, as per BBC.

The reference was to a period of mass purges in the 1960s and 1970s, which set off violence and huge upheaval across China.

Jin Mingri and Zion Church

Pastor Jin Mingri, who also goes by Ezra, founded Beijing Zion Church in 2007, after he quit as a pastor for the official Protestant church.

A graduate of the prestigious Peking University, Jin converted to Christianity after witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Long told Reuters.

After his arrest, he is being held in Beihai City No 2 Detention Centre on suspicion of “illegal use of information networks”, an official detention notice that Long gave to the news agency showed. The offence carries a maximum jail term of seven years.

There are concerns among supporters that Jin and other pastors could be indicted on charges of illegally using the internet to disseminate religious information.

“He’s been hospitalised in the past for diabetes. We’re worried since he requires medication,” Grace Jin, the pastor’s daughter, told New York Times (NYT). “I’ve also been notified that lawyers are not allowed to meet the pastors, so that is very concerning to us."

Jin’s wife Liu Chunli wrote in a letter that her heart is “filled with a mix of shock, grief, sorrow, worry, and righteous anger”.

Jin “simply [did] what any faithful pastor would do… He is innocent!” she said, adding that her family’s hopes for a reunion have been dashed again.  

Zion Church is among the largest underground or house churches, which are not registered with the Chinese authorities. They do not adhere to the Chinese government restrictions on believers to worship only in registered congregations.

According to representatives, the church has witnessed a significant growth in recent years, with services reaching around 5,000 to 10,000 people each week.

A nationwide crackdown in 2018 on independent churches had led to the closure of several prominent house churches, including Beijing Zion.

The government regularly presses ordinary Chinese to report unsanctioned religious gatherings to the police.

After the 2018 crackdown, Jin faced frequent surveillance and harassment and was forced to leave Beijing, his daughter told NYT. He was also banned from leaving China to visit his family members, who left the country in 2018.

His wife and three children have resettled in the United States.

“I think he had always known that there was a possibility he would be imprisoned,” Grace Jin said to Reuters.

Dozens of police officers stopped Jin last month from boarding a US-bound flight from China’s Shanghai, and restricted his travel outside Beihai, Fu, the founder of Christian NGO ChinaAid said.  

“The key underlying reason is that Zion Church has grown explosively into a well-organised network in recent years, which of course must scare the Communist Party leadership,” Fu told the news agency.

China’s crackdown on religion

China’s latest crackdown on religion comes a month after new rules from the country’s top religion regulator banned unauthorised online preaching or religious training by clergy, as well as “foreign collusion”.

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to “implement strict law enforcement” and to advance the “Sinicisation” of religion in China. Under him, Beijing has increasingly clamped down on religious freedom, especially against Christians and Muslims.

China has over 44 million (4.4 crore) Christians registered with state-sanctioned churches, the majority Protestant, as per official data.  

However, tens of millions are estimated to be part of illegal “house churches” that are not under the control of the ruling Communist Party.

US condemns China pastors’ arrest

The recent crackdown on Christian pastors in China has been denounced by US officials and lawmakers.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for their release.  

“This crackdown further demonstrates how the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches,” Rubio said in a statement on Sunday. “We call on the CCP to immediately release the detained church leaders and to allow all people of faith, including members of house churches, to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution."

  Former US Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also condemned the arrests.  

Zion Church pastor Long said the growth of the church and the tensions between the US and China could be behind the recent crackdown, saying that the Chinese government wants to control its citizens and views Zion Church as a threat.

But he said Zion Church was neither a threat nor did it oppose the Chinese government.

“We are not criminals but Christians,” Long said to NPR. “We are not anti-CCP, we are not anti-China. We love our people, love our society, love our culture. We are not a Western political force. That is 100 per cent wrong. We are a Chinese house church adhering to historic Christian faith. We are believers of Jesus. We have nothing to do with the US-China tension or competition."

When asked about the arrests at a press conference, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian feigned ignorance.  

He said: “The Chinese government governs religious affairs in accordance with the law, and protects the religious freedom of citizens and normal religious activities. We firmly oppose the US interfering in China’s internal affairs with so-called religious issues."

With inputs from agencies