Trump should press Xi on China’s persecution of believers at home and abroad
Pastor Ezra Jin, an independent Christian leader detained in China, said after his release that Beijing’s restrictions on religious practice should be a central concern in U.S.-China relations.
“A China without religious freedom is a China we cannot accept,” Jin told a small group gathered on Capitol Hill shortly after he was freed from a Chinese prison.
President Donald Trump had raised Jin’s case with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their May summit. Weeks later, Jin was released.
Jin had pastored the Zion Church in Beijing, an independent Christian house church that operated outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party. His detention highlighted one of the most persistent points of tension between Washington and Beijing: China’s strict oversight of religious life and the United States’ insistence that religious freedom is a basic human right.
The issue has repeatedly surfaced in U.S.-China diplomacy. During Xi’s planned visit to Washington beginning Sept. 24, former Ambassador Sam Brownback urged Trump to press the Chinese government on religious repression and to make clear that Beijing’s efforts to monitor or intimidate dissidents abroad will not be tolerated.
“Trump should make this system of coercion and control a point of discussion,” Brownback wrote.
Brownback, now a prominent advocate for religious freedom abroad, argued that China’s treatment of religious groups is not merely an internal Chinese matter. He said Beijing’s pressure on religious communities has increasingly extended beyond China’s borders through surveillance, threats and other forms of transnational repression.
The source story cites several examples of religious figures and groups facing detention or repression in China. It says ten Chinese Catholic bishops are currently in some form of detention, while Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, 94, was recently convicted for failing to properly register a charity fund. It also notes that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, known as the Panchen Lama and a senior figure in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by Chinese authorities 31 years ago and has not been publicly seen since.
Brownback pointed to the case of Falun Gong practitioners as another example of Beijing’s campaign against religious and spiritual groups. He wrote that forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners has been well documented and said more than 5,000 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been recorded since the group was cracked down on in 1999.
The article also references broader concerns about Chinese influence operations targeting people in the United States. Anthropic has reported disrupting China-based intelligence activity that used its Claude AI platform to create surveillance dossiers on overseas dissidents and religious communities, including Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, Christians and Uyghur Muslims. Separately, a Bronx man was convicted of running a secret Chinese police station in Manhattan used to monitor dissidents.
For Jin, the question is whether China can be considered a reliable partner while restricting the most personal aspects of life, including worship. Brownback said countries that do not allow their own people to practice religion freely should not be treated as dependable trading partners.
“Americans will not accept Beijing’s meddling when it follows people across borders and tries to stifle, silence or punish them for choosing both faith and freedom,” he wrote.
Jin’s release came after Trump personally raised his case with Xi, underscoring how individual prisoners of conscience have become part of the broader diplomatic conversation between the United States and China. For advocates of religious freedom, Jin’s case is both a personal victory and a reminder of the larger struggle facing independent religious communities in China.