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“A China without religious freedom is a China we cannot accept,” Pastor Ezra 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 at their May summit. Weeks later, Jin was free.
But why was he in jail in the first place?
He pastored the Zion Church in Beijing, an independent Christian house church outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
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Any and all religious groups in China must come under the control of the CCP or be subject to harassment, arrest, closure or worse. Forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners has been well documented. Falun Gong is a Chinese spiritual movement that the CCP particularly singles out for harsh treatment.
In this photo taken Aug. 4, 2018, Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri leads a class on the basics of Christian beliefs at the Zion Church in Beijing, China. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)
Ten Chinese Catholic bishops — 10 — are currently in some form of detention in China for refusing to toe the CCP line. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong was recently convicted of failing to properly register a charity fund. He is 94 years old and has been a respected leader in Hong Kong for decades, but not anymore in Xi’s China. Zen does not support the secret deal between the Chinese government and the Vatican over the appointment of Catholic bishops in China.
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The Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the second-highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by the Chinese government 31 years ago. His current location is still unknown.
Details differ, but the underlying pattern is the same. Religious leaders and communities not controlled by Beijing face intimidation, detention, disappearance or worse.
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This system of religious control by the state is completely counter to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our own belief that the soul of every individual on the planet is entitled to be free to determine its own eternal destiny. A system that controls the most sacred right of the person is not a system we can support with our economic activity.
Beijing’s oppression doesn’t stop at its own borders.
The CCP is increasingly waging a campaign of harassment, disinformation and lawfare — called transnational repression — against religious and political dissidents in the United States. Falun Gong practitioners alone have suffered nearly 300 bomb and death threats . Not to mention the persecution of them still raging within China itself, where more than 5,000 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been recorded since the crackdown began in 1999.
Just days ago, Anthropic reported disrupting China-based intelligence operations using its Claude AI platform to build surveillance dossiers on overseas dissidents and Tibetan Buddhist, Falun Gong, Christian and Uyghur communities, including the U.S. Beijing has a proven pattern of exploiting American institutions and technology to harass and oppress dissidents who had thought they had reached the safety of America.
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Xi is scheduled to be in Washington starting on Sept. 24. Trump should make this system of coercion and control a point of discussion. Countries that won’t even allow their own people to worship freely are not reliable trading partners and certainly not countries we want to prop up with our dollars. They may provide us with cheap goods, but our souls, and those of others, are not for sale at any price.
Details differ, but the underlying pattern is the same. Religious leaders and communities not controlled by Beijing face intimidation, detention, disappearance or worse.
Communism officially denies the existence of God and establishes government as the highest authority in the universe. Therefore, everything is under its control unless it specifically permits freedom. A person’s rights come from the government, not from God or anywhere else.
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Communists, authoritarians and totalitarians figured out long ago that “religious people” must be controlled because they choose to answer to a higher authority — an allegiance that fortifies their willingness to confront and defy government when it is in the wrong, even at the cost of their property, freedom or lives.
Sounds like the kind of people we want to advocate for! Think of the Jewish refuseniks and evangelicals of the late Soviet era who confronted that evil regime, or the Christians in Burma who stand against the ruling military junta today.
But freedom comes at a cost. That’s why it’s so precious.
The cost to us is not our freedom, as it is for the Chinese Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners or Uyghur Muslims. It is our willingness to stand up to China.
Trump is the first president since John F. Kennedy to confront China, and he should be applauded for it — and encouraged to go further. He raised tariffs on an evil Communist regime that seeks world dominance. He has confronted and weakened China’s allies in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere.
He should continue to exert that leverage on behalf of people whose only offense is refusing to place their faith on the altar of the Chinese Communist Party. Now is the time to confront the CCP’s extensive apparatus of religious oppression — just as Reagan confronted the Soviet system — and make clear that the Chinese people should not have to choose between their faith and freedom.
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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.
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When Xi arrives in Washington, President Trump should make that clear.
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