As the world ushered in 2026 with hopes of a better life, Christians in China instead began the new year on a sombre and painful note. Several prominent leaders of a Protestant church in Chengdu were detained, and the Yayang Church building in Wenzhou was demolished by Chinese authorities. Since Xi Jinping took over the reins, the suppression efforts are said to have led to harassment of pastors, bans on mass gatherings, and even the removal of Christian symbols and destruction of church buildings.
Expressing concerns over the arrests in Chengdu, Human Rights Watch’s Yalkun Uluyol said “The Chinese government has ushered in the new year with new arrests of underground Protestant church members. The government should immediately free those detained and let them freely practice their religion.” US-based religious rights group ChinaAid called the Chinese action “yet another grave escalation in the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to eradicate independent Christian faith”.
Just two weeks ago, another Protestant church was raided, and about 100 members were arrested. Over 1,000 Chinese police personnel raided Yayang Town and made haphazard arrests. Christian groups slammed the China Communist Party (CCP) government’s policy to stamp out churches that did not align with its ideology. “Xi Jinping’s government has tightened ideological control and intensified its intolerance of loyalties beyond the Chinese Communist Party,” Uluyol said.
Notably, the Chengdu church was raided by Chinese police in 2018 as well, when its founder was detained and later sent to jail. A few months ago, a Zion Pastor named Gao Yingjia was picked up by plain-clothed policemen in the middle of the night and sent to a detention centre in Guangxi province. Subsequently, he was charged with “illegal use of information networks” as he was accused of being a part of the unregistered group of Zion Church. Several other pastors and members of Zion Church were arrested during this time.
Fearing her arrest too and the safety of her child, Geng Pengpeng, the wife of the arrested pastor Gao Yingjia, fled to Thailand. “We both knew that as Christians in China, there were risks. But to be honest, you can never be fully prepared,” said Geng. “Telling myself that the old days are gone forever… A profound sense of rootlessness rises from my chest, as if I have lost the home my husband gave me.” In 2019, 60 Christians had fled China fearing persecution. “If we stayed, we would have had no chance,” said pastor Pan Yongguang.
Interestingly, Beijing came up with Regulations on Religious Affairs two decades ago, which mandated registration of religious groups even as it vowed to protect Chinese citizens’ religious freedoms. However, the intentional vagueness of the regulations allowed police agencies to suppress religious activities that they found were out of the scope of the state-controlled system. The Sinicisation campaign under Xi has seen the demolition of several churches and crosses atop them, restrictions on Bible possession, banning or confiscation of religious material and resources not authorised by the government.
The CCP government is trying to reduce the number of churches in China by forcing Christians to denounce their faith if they do not want to lose benefits under government welfare schemes, said Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid. Experts said the CCP government was nervous due to the political potential of Christianity as a force for change and its claim to universal rights and values. “Those kinds of new attitudes have translated into different types of measures against Christians, which amount to intensified persecution of religious groups, said Eva Pils, a professor of law at King’s College London. “Xi Jinping’s response is much more invasive and it is in some ways returning to Mao-era attempts to control hearts and minds.”
The population of Christians in China has stagnated in recent years, thanks to the increased restrictions and religious repression under Xi’s regime, according to the Pew Research Centre. The United Nations often has been urged to take cognisance of the CCP campaign against Christianity. “Christian persecution in China has reached levels not seen since the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong. Chinese Christians are routinely imprisoned and subjected to torture,” reads a submission to the UN General Assembly. “Under Xi’s leadership, the CCP has deployed a range of tactics to stifle Christian communities.”
