China’s Crackdown on Zion Church: William Nee on the Fight for Religious Freedom

In this episode of Faithful Politics, Will and Josh talk with China expert William Nee about the major October 2025 crackdown on Beijing’s Zion Church, one of the largest underground Christian networks in China. William explains what actually happened during the coordinated raids, why Pastor Ezra Jin (Jin Mingri) and nearly 30 church leaders were charged with “illegally using information networks,” and how all of this connects to Xi Jinping’s tightened national-security agenda.

The conversation steps back to look at the broader picture: how “Sinicization” works, why the Chinese Communist Party fears independent faith communities, and what life is like for ordinary Christians when church gatherings, youth religious education, and online ministry can all trigger state action.

William also describes how the U.S. government and human-rights groups are responding, why international attention matters, and what this moment means for Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and others facing religious restrictions in China. If you want clear, grounded insight into what’s really happening inside China’s religious-freedom landscape, this episode gives you the context you need.

Guest bio:

William Nee is the Senior Manager for East Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), where he focuses on China’s human-rights landscape, civil society, and religious freedom. Before NED, he served as a China researcher at Amnesty International and worked with Chinese Human Rights Defenders. His work often covers the CCP’s efforts to control faith communities, including the recent crackdown on Zion Church and its founder, Pastor Ezra Jin.

RELEVANT LINKS

Zion Church background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Zion_Church

Pastor Ezra Jin biography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Mingri

Reuters report on the 2025 arrests:
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-undergr

Transcript

0:18

Hey there, Faithful Politics listeners. If you're joining us on um our podcast stream and viewers, if you're joining us on YouTube, guys, thanks for being here for another episode of Faithful Politics podcast. I'm your faithful host, Josh Bertram. And of course I'm joined by our political host, Will Wright. Will, how are you? Good to see you. What's your shirt today? I need to see it. Thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you. So like, you know, my, I wore it because today I felt like a plastic bag. Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? I love it. I think that's great. And uh man, we're just so glad that you guys uh joined us for another episode where we try to dig into really interesting things and important things in our culture and church and all sorts of stuff and get expert opinions on it. And today we actually have William Nee back for, I don't know, what is it, the fourth, fifth? You know what I keep saying? Sixth, seventh, and then my kids go sixth, seventh. seven Please don't. I know. it. It's crazy. I have two little teenagers, so they're always saying that to me. I still don't get it. been on before, but just so our audience knows listening for the first time here, you are the research and advocacy coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, where he focuses on a wide range of human rights issues affecting activists and ordinary citizens in China. He also served as a China researcher, sorry, and business and human rights analyst at Amnesty International and as development director at China Labor. and you write frequently and learn a lot about Chinese um politics and its relationship to religious freedom and uh we'd love to happy to have you back on to talk with us. Thanks for being here. Thanks a lot, Josh. And just one quick correction. I've actually moved on from CHRD, where I used to work in Chinese human rights, and I'm now at the National Endowment for Democracy, which is an organization founded by Ronald Reagan to promote democracy and human rights around the world. And so we're the largest grant-making institution to democracy and human rights groups around the world, uh but still kind of in the same line of work and looking very much at China and Chinese politics. Wow, okay, thank you so much for that correction. I don't know, how do I duly note this? Can I just say duly noted and then now, duly noted, yes, okay, that's good. uh Man, I'm actually really excited to have you on and it's weird, because I've never once in my life, I gotta be honest with you, well, do you like prefer Will or William? I'm sorry, I'm forgetting, either way? Yeah, not to confuse, that's good. So William, I've never once been excited about a... uh a Chinese Communist Party uh plenary uh meeting or plenum or whatever it's called, this massive meeting. um And I kind of wanted you to come on and talk about this because there's been some stuff in the news about persecution in China. We've talked about this in terms of uh the Muslim population there. And now, of course, it's not new for the Christian population to experienced some kind of persecution there. And I would just love if you'd help us understand though, the plenary meeting, plenary meeting. What is this? What happened here? Why is it significant? Yeah, so the Chinese Communist Party oh convenes plenums and there's usually five for each term. And there was some buzz about whether they were going to recalibrate. This is where all the central committee members come to meet. And oftentimes they discuss important policy directions, maybe new directions for the country in terms of uh economic measures, policies, sometimes law. um But this one, you most commentators, they met about a month ago and most commentators thought that the uh five-year plan that came out of it really didn't have too much new. It's things that the Communist Party has kind of been talking about for a long time in terms of its, uh you know, the use of new technologies and China really wants to become the kind of the master of that, ensuring they have their own supply chains and so on. The thing that caught people by surprise though is that for the military uh leaders who showed up, many of them were missing. And there's been kind of a purge that's been going on at the People's Liberation Army, um which is the PLA, which is the um Communist Party controlled military. And a lot of people don't really know what to make of this. uh Xi Jinping, who we often call the president, is actually the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in addition to being the president and he's the chairman of the Central Military Commission. So he's essentially he has three roles and he oversees the PLA and for whatever reason many many of the senior leaders of the PLA have been purged. em And so that was really kind of the most notable thing that's that's gone on from this and em there's a lot of different theories why but at the at the end of the day we don't really know. But there's something strange going on with purging of senior military leaders. You know, so I'm coming into this um cold. uh Josh has really been reading up on this and studying this a lot more than I have. So can you just give us a little bit of a background of like, what are these plenary plena meetings? Like, what's kind of the history of them? You know, and is there sort of like uh an American context that can kind of help, you know, uh us better understand like how it works within their system of government? Well, that's a really good question. I would say that there's no easy comparison for people who are used to democratic systems or US politics. I suppose in a way it's a little bit similar to every four years where you have like the Democratic National Convention or the Republican equivalent where they come together and there's maybe party speeches. And, you know, in some cases they try to have a party platform going forward. So it is a way in which the party can talk to itself, can come up with its own internal structure like the policies going forward. They come out with important readouts that they put out to the public which gives everybody within the party system kind of an understanding of where the party is going including you know people in state-owned enterprises or even gives private investors kind of an understanding of what the party's thinking may be. So I would put it in line with, I guess that's probably the best equivalent I could think of, like every four years when we have the conventions. So I think that's an interesting analogy. Of course, though, we normally don't have the same kinds of fear, at least now when there's people missing in those conventions that maybe they might have gone to a better place. I don't know what the phrase is in Chinese. um I wonder, although interestingly, and this is totally aside, but Will, do you remember when we were told that if you put someone in black and white, it means that they're dead? in like in a picture in like in China. I think someone told is that true William is that I know this is go ahead. mean, it's I don't know if they yeah, if they're in black and white, sometimes people will go to the websites of. um of various ministries to see if people are still oh viewable. Sometimes people go missing for long periods of time and there's no real explanation. it is, you know, one of the things to know about Xi Jinping is when he came to power, he started this anti-corruption drive. And corruption is run by the central CCDI, the central disciplinary organ of the party. And discipline is not only for corruption, but it's also for party discipline. So in other words, like, are you towing the party line? Are you making statements or doing things in your personal life that may be at odds with the party, like forming cliques, forming alliances with other people, uh or even having mistresses in addition to corruption? And they have gone after hundreds of thousands of party cadres, including some of the very top-ranking people. So this, in some ways, the purge of the PLA that's happening isn't new, but it's difficult for outsiders to really make much of. um And people will often go to the websites to see if people are still there, whether their pictures are still uh on the website. So you kind have to get this information through various creative ways. And that makes sense. I guess what I'm really trying to get at is even more clearly, what is remarkable about the fact? So you said it's not new, but is there anything remarkable about the fact that there have been these people missing? And I guess what I'm trying to connect is, like, I guess some of the stuff I saw is this hasn't been, no sitting CMC member has been removed since the Cultural Revolution. m I don't know if that's true or not, but is that true? What is this boat essentially, um if anything, in your mind, if you can't answer it? I will say that I am really not. I mean, we have many people who are kind of PLA analysts who would probably have great takes on this. uh You know, there have been there was speculation that some of the PLA purges meant that Xi Jinping had lost power because some of these people were actually in his networks. They were they were kind of his protege's like people who were. Really? loyalty to him. So people said, well, if they're, if they're going down, then obviously that means that C has lost power. I mean, I would refer people to put perhaps Jamestown, Jamestown Review, which is a publication that looks at this and I think does a remarkable job, but they had a very good analysis over the summer that basically argued that no, it's not really um evidence that Xi Jinping has lost power. uh And kind of in the Chinese tradition with Mao Zedong, purging people as a way to actually gain power. mean, people are more nervous, they're arguably more loyal. uh So that could be one possibility. I mean, there could be possibilities over substantive questions in the military that people on the outside have no real insight into. So I wish I had a better answer, but. A lot of times with elite Chinese politics, the best you can say is, I'm not really sure. Yeah, so how is this meeting tied to like religious freedom more broadly? I would say that the top level meetings generally have little day to day impact on like religious freedom per se. Probably the most important aspect of religious freedom that has happened in China in the last decade or so was I believe it was in 2015 or 16 when Xi Jinping made a very bold speech on religion, on how the party should handle religion. And he essentially said, we are going to stick with the way that the party manages religion. um He wants all kadras to be Marxist atheists and to kind of reinforce that, which, uh you know, I think most party uh officials probably are atheist anyway, but particularly in Tibet, where people are predominantly Buddhist and in the Muslim areas, whether that's in the Uighur They call it the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Uyghurs would call it East Turkestan. Or in other areas where there's Hui, Hui are kind of ethnically Chinese people who are Muslims. You know, whether or not you enforce that is actually quite significant. um And they also had a very important policy to cynicize religions. So China only has five official religions. So they have Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Taoism, anything they wanted to make those religions more compatible with Chinese culture and particularly Chinese Communist Party rule. And so they've asserted much more authority over those religions. uh Meanwhile, in areas like Zhejiang, which is the province that's right south of Shanghai and is basically China's most prosperous province. um They do a lot of international trade and are very successful. They have some really beautiful cities like Hangzhou um where Alibaba and other corporations are located. In that very prosperous province, there's a lot of Christians and the government there, the provincial government had a campaign to tear down crosses, to tear down crucifixes and demolish churches and hundreds of churches were destroyed in that area. um So they came out, she had this speech on synthesizing religion. They then had subsequent laws. They revised the relevant laws regarding religion. And since then, there's been crackdowns and stricter uh tightening of religious life as it relates to both Buddhists in Tibet, certainly in the Uighur region where over Somewhere between one to two million people were put in uh re-education camps. ah that includes the Uyghur Human Rights Project did a report that includes many, many imams and other religious figures. People could be sent there for having any known prayer life, for going on the Hajj pilgrimage, uh for wearing veils or having what they call abnormal beards. So really any sort of prayer life, prayer mats would be criteria used to detain someone. Whether you, you know, if you had downloaded a Quran oh on your app, you know, on your phone, you know, and they checked your phone and found that, boom, you know, you're in the camps. So there was a huge crackdown on religious life there. And then as it relates to Protestants, they've kind of, there was kind of a loosey goosey laissez-faire attitude with respect to house churches. Kind of like, well, you you technically should belong to the Protestant Three-Self Church, which is like the official church, but there were lots of house churches meeting in small venues or people's homes. um And these were kind of allowed to continue to a large extent, especially if they weren't causing any political trouble, weren't crossing red lines. um But they've really started to clamp down on that. And that has accelerated through the last 10 years. But especially this year, it appears that there's a whole new wave of crackdowns on house churches in China. And yeah, and that's where I want to get there. And I guess part of what I'm trying to do is establish like an understanding of what is actually happening in China, who controls the levers and has power. mean, I think people know oh it's kind of like, you know, the Xi Jinping, they might know that name or they might know that it's a communist government, sort of, but it was more capitalistic sometimes than less. They might have some idea or even, you know, oh they might hear conflicting things and not even know that, actually there are religions. They do recognize certain religions in China, but then what does that uh actually even mean? And really even focusing in on this one aspect, I think from what I understand that came out of this plenary meeting was this almost uh this emphasis on national security, social stability, and kind of like, having control of the ideological domain, which I think it seems would directly connect in some ways with these crackdowns of trying to fight, like really control society more. And I guess to the degree that you can, um what is the plan? What is this tightening maybe gonna look like? Do we know? m And how is that gonna affect churches? And then maybe we can bridge there then to this situation that's happening um with the crackdown. you're right that there was at the plenum emphasis on national security. But that has really been kind of a hallmark of the Xi Jinping era and not just Xi Jinping, but this really, you know, he's proverbially ramped it up to 11, you know. But he's done this since he took power kind of back in 2013. So if you kind of want to take a step back, you know, the first decade of this century, you know, from You know, 2001, China joined the WTO. uh And then, you know, really just the economy went gangbusters. mean, was GDP growth was growing at anywhere from, you know, eight to 11 percent. If you were on the ground in China at the time, it was just staggering. Like you could go to one place, view it and come back a year later and like it would be totally demolished and new buildings would be up. They're putting in infrastructure everywhere. So this was going on and it was kind of like the Wild West in terms of how things were developing and the government was definitely censoring the internet and trying to censor the press, but there was a degree of openness um just because there was so much growth and so much kind of vitality really. uh But this like last decade is really, they've really kind of um as the economy slowed, uh you know, arguably Xi Jinping felt that civil society, the growth of religions, the growth of different ideologies, uh had all kind of gotten a little bit outside of the communist party's control. And so his main overarching goal is to wield back control ah through all these different sectors of life. So whether that's entertainment, you know, they've put more stricter um regulations on what can be in TV and movies. In terms of the internet, They've really censored the internet to a much greater extent. uh In academia, they've put the screws on academia and the CCDI, the disciplinary unit has actually investigated many of the top universities. uh They've constricted the space for private businesses. So China, of course, had a very vibrant entrepreneurial scene, but many of the entrepreneurs have had to give up power. Some of them have gone abroad. uh Many of them have tried to get out, but they've kind of replaced that to a greater, putting more resources into state-owned enterprises. um They've kind of cracked down on ideologies, whether that's feminism, the LGBT community, oh civil society groups promoting the rule of law. In 2015, they had a crackdown on lawyers, human rights lawyers. Over 300 people were detained on one day. July 9th, 2015, and many of them served prison time. Many of them were tortured really quite badly. Independent labor organizers, so all of these, they've cracked down on like a variety of sectors. And for religion, you know, they're very suspicious uh of religion, particularly what they view as religions that have connections with foreign influences. So whether that's Islam, which kind of looks to uh you know, looks elsewhere for inspiration or Buddhism, which, you know, you have the Dalai Lama in India ah now and Tibet has its own religious traditions that the party doesn't completely control. And then with Christianity, you know, obviously the Catholic Church has uh very strong ties to the Vatican uh and they've had their deal there. um and then with Protestant churches, ah you know, there's a lot of connection. historically with churches throughout the world, the United States for sure, but also, you know, there's Protestant communities that have been inspired by people in Europe or even Korea or other areas. So they view all of that as a potential political threat. think any organizing outside of the party's control is also seen as a threat, even if what they're doing is relatively benign. You know, the fact that you may be able to get hundreds of people to organize, to come together, and even if you're going to do things that are like, you know, collections to help the needy or, you know, street sweeping or something very beneficial for the community, that's still from the Communist Party's point of view a threat because it's happening outside the party's control. So I don't know if that made sense at all. Yeah, and I'm curious, like, when I hear the word, and I would probably argue when most Americans hear the word religious liberty or religious freedom, that connotates something to them, you know, like they may think constitution or they may think, you know, I don't know, uh a mixed bag of religions and a pluralistic society, but like, If you were a citizen of China, is that a concept that's understood in that same way, or is it only understood in those five main beliefs that you just talked about? Uh, well, that's a great question, Will. um I would say that the... Part well from the party's point of view they would say I mean if I were the party right now And you were asking me I would say China absolutely believes in religious freedom. It's it's in our Constitution everybody can have religious freedom according to the law and According to the law is the huge caveat which means you can only do what the party allows you to do go to the worship Services at the at the party places that they've instituted through with ministers that they have ordained and control using texts that they have pre-approved. So it's all uh allowed, but allowed by with the party's oversight. And anything outside that system is the threat. And that's what, you know, they, they, they, they revised the religious affairs regulations, I believe in 2018 to more tightly control that. And as a result, any worship that's happening outside of that, system could be deemed illegal. um And in fact, many pastors have been detained recently on charges of either illegal business operations or fraud. So, know, in other words, if you were having a Bible study in a church with, you know, let's say 100 people and they're giving donations to Josh, if you're not part of the Three-Self Church and the government finds this out, they could arrest you. on the charge of illegal business operations or fraud. And they've done this in dozens of cases in recent years. um So I guess that um from the point of view of average person, they're probably questioning whether there's religious freedom, if it's a question that they're thinking about. Yeah, is, there's one way to kind of think about what, what you just said. Like, like there's, you know, there's Christianity, Protestant, Protestantism, Protestantism, man, I can't, I can't get that word. Anyways, there's Christianity there and, um, it's all controlled by, by the government. Like, would one way to kind of think about that control would be like a denomination, such as, you know, like if, and I would just use Southern Baptist, just because that's the only one I can think of right now. You know, like their views on women being pastors. So in a sense of like they, they're practicing Christianity. but there is a version of Christianity that they are practicing and kind of making mandatory and anything outside of that would be, you know, ah would be bad. Like, is that kind of one way to kind of think about sort of how religion works in that country? uh Yeah, it could be one way to think of it. would, I mean if you're more cynical, uh which I guess I am, I guess you could say that ultimately the Chinese Communist Party uh wants to manage religion in the sense that they recognize that it's a very powerful force in life. for especially in ethnically minority areas, historically they've sometimes taken a more delicate approach in managing religion when they don't crack down immediately if they feel that there might be a very hostile reaction to that. uh And in fact, Xi Jinping's father was, uh Xi Jong-Soon was a communist party leader, one of the most senior, who was also very heavily involved uh in managing religions. whether that's Tibetan, Buddhism, or Islam, and he had often taken cautious approaches. Not because, I mean, he was an atheist, but he did that because he didn't want a violent backlash if they moved too quickly. So from that point of view, it was a cost-benefit calculation on how tightly should I control this uh with the ultimate goal of getting rid of religion altogether. uh So they, you know, they currently don't allow anyone under 18 to go to religious services, to get religious training, uh that is illegal. uh So essentially they want to stop religion over time. So I guess your analogy with like a Southern Baptist group who's trying to maybe police things outside of their faith parameters, it's kind of like that, except your Southern Baptist person most likely would strongly believe in their faith and want it to continue. I'd say where the analogy breaks down is the party's trying to control things with the ultimate objective of kind of having things like wither on the vine. I think that's absolutely fascinating that that's their strategy. It's almost like we can pretend to be religiously tolerant while at the same time, essentially cutting, killing it at the root or trying to at least or trying to make it so that you can't have good leaders who can then help people and train people, right? Whatever it is. So you're going for that for that leadership. And it makes me think about like There are specific cases, there's one I'm thinking of, just to make sure I get it right. uh It happened in October 2025, Chinese authorities carried out a large scale coordinated actions uh across multiple provinces targeting Zion Church and affiliated house church networks. says nearly 30 pastors, church staff, and leaders of Zion Church, including its founder, Zhen Mingri, I don't know if I'm saying that right, also known as Zhen, were detained in multiple cities. um Formal charges for at least some of the detained include illegal use of information networks, a crime under Chinese criminal law tied to the church's online ministry and digital outreach. And then the crackdown is widely described by human rights groups. and Foreign Observers is one of the largest church crackdowns operations in China in years. And so a reason I wanted to make sure I got on the same page is, you know, there's this thing that's happened right in the same month as this plenary meeting. And there's this almost continuation of this, and you said the word, cynicization. Am I saying that right? And I would love for you to help us understand Like what is cynicization and connected to why this is happening to these churches? Like why, essentially why are these house churches a threat? Why are they an issue um under this policy? Yeah, well, I mean, the cynicization, basically that means to Chinese-ify, and there's another word to maybe use. um And I think it comes from the suspicion from Chinese Communist Party leaders that, um you know, whether it's Tibetan Buddhism or Islam or Christianity are not sufficiently Chinese. And so they want to make it more compatible with Chinese culture and the Chinese development path, as they might say, meaning the Communist Party's and allow kind of politics to more directly be ingrained in teachings and doctrine. oh In the Uyghur region and also in the Hui region, the Muslim areas, they've taken down kind of uh Arabic inspired, uh maybe minarets and other architecture, like literally demolish them and have kind of made the buildings look more Chinese, or they've taken down Arabic uh from various mosques and have made just demolish that. So in some cases it can have actual changes to the building to make it look like more Chinese. uh But in terms of... uh you know, Christianity, what you were saying there for the Zion Church. I don't think that that's actually directly impacted by the plenum. Well, I mean, maybe it was. I mean, it did happen kind of before then. And oftentimes before important political meetings, they will put a lid on dissidents and like not allow them to travel. um You know, they will kind of put them under house arrest. That does happen from time to time. So it's not completely implausible, but... uh What's important to know about that case in particular is kind of two other aspects. One is there was a thing called the Measures of the Administration of the Internet Religious Information uh Regulations that came into effect in September. uh And these were regulations that basically uh made it kind of a white list. Like if you were a religious personnel communicating on the internet, you had to do it through certain portals. And anything kind of outside of that would be considered illegal. And why that's important for Zion Church is they were kind of a sprawling house church network uh that in 2018, the government tried to shut down. They tried to put surveillance cameras inside the church, the party officials did, and they refused to do so. uh And as a result, uh you know, they had to kind of go to a hybrid model. some in church meetings, some like online. And through the online format, once COVID hit, it actually was very helpful to the church and it was very helpful and they became very, uh they had over 10,000 members uh in multiple cities throughout China. But they've used this charge, the illegal dissemination of information online is the charge that they initially detained these people under. And 18 were arrested just two days ago. um And another eight were given bail. But I think that what this shows is it's kind of the next stage in China's crackdown on religious freedom is that they're afraid of people spreading the gospel online. And so this church, which is a very kind of mainstream Protestant church, Ezra Jean, as you mentioned, the pastor. You he's a guy who went to the Fuller Seminary for a while in the US. Yeah. So, um you know, you can think of kind of probably similar, you know, you think of like Rick Warren or, you know, someone like that. He's kind of very much in that mold of just kind of a mainstream Protestant evangelical preacher. uh You know, and his congregation very much wants to be patriotic. They very much want to be seen as good Chinese citizens who are helping for the best of their community. They do not want to be uh dissidents against the Communist Party. That's not in any way kind of the goal. They're just very much focused on their religion. But for whatever reason, the government saw that as a threat. Now, so whether that's connected to those new regulations, which went into effect in September, just a month before they were detained, or like 10 days before they were detained. Or whether that was some people speculate their detention may have been somewhat related to, uh you know, President Trump meeting with Xi Jinping ahead of their first meeting in this Trump second term. Some people had speculated that as a potential rationale. uh Ultimately, we're not quite sure. But it is true that it is one of the most significant crackdowns because they detained people. in multiple areas in multiple cities on the same day in a coordinated raid brought them all to the same city. I collected them from Beijing, Shanghai and all around and brought them to one city, Beihai in the south. ah So that's a very kind of unique uh thing that shows that there's a national level coordination going on. that's a sophisticated coordination I was gonna say. I don't know how it compares to the other, but that was obviously very, very intentional and on a mass level. just a local leader deciding to go after a pastor because of their own discretion, which whether that's good or bad, this is a national level decision to go after this church, essentially. Yeah, if you were just like a ordinary Christian attending a house church, uh like today, like what does your daily life look like? I mean, I'm assuming you are still going to your job uh and doing whatever it is you're doing, but it's like, do Christians in China like wear their faith kind of on their sleeve? Like, can you stand out? Basically, by just being a Christian. mean, I suppose the Bible says we should, right? Like, or at least people should be able to tell us they're all for Christian. So yeah, just walk us through like, what's a day in the life of a Christian in China? That's a great question. Well, I think it kind of depends oh maybe on where the people are, whether they go to a, you know, whether it's a house church or a three self church. But I would say that overall it may not be that different from the US that people will probably go to there's maybe there's Sunday worship services, you know. like listen to sermons online. That's been a very kind of popular way and spread messages with their fellow congregants. um So I, you know, overall I would hesitate to say that it's dramatically different from what we might think of in the U.S. Yeah, you know, this whole thing is so, em it's concerning for sure. And I'm trying to pinpoint on why I'm concerned beyond just obviously it's a human rights issue that should be concerning to people that believe in human rights, know, basic human rights. And it's like, am I concerned that this kind of thing could happen here? Am I concerned that like, Like, what is it about this that's like, that's, I guess it's hitting me so much. And I guess there's this sense that, oh man, like the church is doing well in China. You always hear, I hear this, you know, it's doing great. It's spreading like wildfire. And then to hear and see this, it just makes me think, man, like, man, it's gonna get worse. It's gonna get a lot worse. It feels like, um and I don't want to be cynical like we've talked about, it just, it kind of just, is is communist party language like become, cynicization, is that just another word for what Xi Jinping wants? What he thinks and teaches? Or is it much broader than that? Like is he a totalitarian dictator to the extent that you would think of? Stalin or someone like that or is it he's really just trying to work through and he believes in the cause and Hmm. You know, it's kind of two questions there. just, I guess I don't really understand why churches are such a big deal to China. Like why, why are they so afraid of them? I know dude, way too many. I'm sorry. I'm like thinking out loud. a lot of wonderful questions that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I would say, does Xi Jinping believe in the cause? No, here I'm just saying my own view. I think he very much does. I think he, in his, he believes that, he believes very strongly in the rejuvenation of China, that China was uh kind of a victim of the opium wars. from the 1800s and was preyed upon by foreign powers. And he wants to make China great. And he believes that the Communist Party of China is the vehicle through which that's going to be great. And his number one goal in life is to serve the party and promote the party and make it strong. And that's what he's dedicated his whole life to. That's very clear. And so that's his mission. um And he, you know, the party, uh going back to its Marxist, Leninist roots, it's very much against religion. mean, it's, you know, he's the one who said in his own speech that he's promoting, uh you know, Marxist atheism. m And so he views kind of religion as a threat. um He does see it as a thing to manage, and that's where the cynicization comes in. And I would say, like, you going back to what I said previously, I wouldn't want to completely like... say that there are good people in the Three-Self Church or in the various government-run churches. I view the government, the party's ultimate objective is trying to make it with or on the vine, but that doesn't mean that there aren't good people working in there who do want to help it. I just want to give it that correction. uh So yeah, think they view the part, the Christianity as a threat. And maybe while you're feeling I think why this feels um threatening is just because of the lack of clear motivation for it in a way. uh You sometimes when you have a dissident who speaks out, know, when the government cracks down on them, you can at least say, well, I understand the clear motivation behind it. But I think that the baffling thing with this is that here you have just kind of a you know, a normal evangelical kind of, you know, church that is just trying to do, you know, you know, spread the gospel and, um you know, and they're cracked down upon. And so it's, it's kind of baffling in that way. But, you know, I've been fortunate enough to, you know, talk with like the daughter of Pastor Ezra, Ezra Jean, that's Grace Drexel. um and she was able to speak, for example, at the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Awards, and I've seen her give talks here in DC. Obviously, this is a very difficult thing for her, having her father detained uh is never easy, but she does feel that it will ultimately have some good to it. I don't know if it's okay, but he wrote a letter from prison. If I could read just one little bit of it, that'd be good. Yeah. So here's from Pastor Ezra Jean's letter. He says, I'm gradually adjusting to life here. My blood sugar and physical discomfort are slowly improving. Don't worry about me. I find great comfort in being able to continue to endure this little suffering for the gospel. Thinking back over the years, many of our young ministers, deacons, and elders have been imprisoned for the gospel and for those senior church leaders I respect have also suffered. When I heard these news, I was so heartbroken that I didn't know what to do. Now that I am experiencing these things myself, I feel more at peace. I'm truly joyful to uh be among these brothers and sisters who have paid the price for the gospel. Isn't this what the Lord Jesus said? Greater love no one has than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15 13. So, you know, I think for those of us who are, uh you know, Christians or even of other religions, we can see the power that actually comes from, from true religion in a context where not doing something political, but just worshiping is something that can get you detained. Yeah, you know, early on in Trump's presidency this year, he signed a number of executive orders, two in particular. One was the establishment of an anti-Christian bias task force. And another one was to establish a religious liberty commission. um And I'm curious, you know, like, to what degree do you see America having an influence um over there in China with religious liberty? That's a good question. um Yeah, I don't know if any of those uh bodies have had a um impact on this case thus far. I would say, though, that there have been some uh positive interventions by the government or the US government. So, you know, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken out in the case of the Zion Church and denounced it. um There was also a resolution in the Senate, which was led by Senator Ted Cruz and Chris Coons that was co-signed by several other senators, but those were the primary two leading it to denounce this persecution of the Zion Church. oh So I think whether you look at the State Department or whether you look at members of Congress, ah there has been some really pretty strong denunciations of this and You know, I think many other people in the foreign policy community here in D.C., like the Hudson Institute and others, have really stepped up and played a strong role in advocating for the Zion Church. But certainly, think that religious freedom is something that is very important. And in China, know, this is one of the most important issues, no matter how you look at it. Yes. oh What's going on in the Uyghur region, which is just, I mean, it's really heartbreaking beyond belief because we still have hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people who are detained or unaccounted for and freedom of religion being a, a main driver of what the government is doing there, trying to crack down on that. We have what's going on in Tibet where the Dalai Lama is turning 90 years old and The government wants to control the reincarnation process for the next Dalai Lama. you know, there's, there was the Panchen Lama who in 1995, the Panchen Lama is one of the other very important Lamas in Tibetan culture. In 1995 was reincarnated and the Dalai Lama recognized the young boy who was a five-year-old boy at the time as the reincarnation. That boy has been detained for 30 years. He's the longest running political prisoner in world history. And he was the youngest at the time as well. So they are clearly, we know that once the Dalai Lama passes on, they will try to control that process and then gain support from other Buddhist countries and the international community for their fake Dalai Lama uh in order to secure their control over Tibet. And then we have what's going on with a hundred million more Christians in China. And when it comes down to it, the freedom of belief, freedom of religion, what you believe in your heart and the traditions you want to have and the morals you want to live by are one of the most important things for any human being and certainly according to human rights law. And it should be up to normal people and not just the Communist Party. You know, there's such a tension that I sense in this whole thing because you have like very strong statements and I guess actions and I'd love for you to extend again that you know, like to kind of outline some of the actions that American government, the American government just in the past has taken to essentially either condemn these, you know, clear you human rights violations, whether it's Uyghur or Christian. And, you know, not just this Zion Church, which of course this is important, but it's kind of a, it's one part of a larger story in the sense of like, how has our foreign policy been? How has this affected our foreign policy? And I think the tension I feel is that we have had such a, we're so tied economically to China. And yet there's such deep ideological issues and like uh chasms, it feels like. And it's like, are we just being hypocrites? know, like carte blanche in bank or whatever you say it. Like, are we just like completely being hypocrites? Because we're just so, we like the cheap labor, we like the cheap stuff. And again, it's one of my multi-layered questions. But I guess it's like, I don't know. It's like we want to condemn it, but I don't know if we're really willing to do much more beyond that. And I don't know what you think about that. Well, Josh, I I love your multi-layered questions. They're so rich. em But no, it's really bringing up a lot of important points, though. um You know, I also neglected that yesterday, the Congressional Executive Commission on China, the CECC, is a body that brings together Democrats, Republicans, people from the Senate, people from the House. um all together to kind of form an expert body on China. They had a special hearing on religious freedom, partially prompted by this case of Zion Church, which is of course very much in the news and very important, uh but also talking about what's going on in Tibet and what's going on in uh the Uyghur region and among Hui Muslims. So I would encourage people to Google that hearing. Because there's a lot of really good testimony there including from Grace Jean the daughter of Ezra Jean so, you know, that's and and you know That is part of the government that's trying to put a focus on these issues um But yeah, I mean we have a very very complicated relationship with China and it's uh It's difficult to know uh how to balance not only trade and and cheap stuff, you know, China's increasingly a powerhouse. you know, part of what the planet was about was being a powerhouse in the technologies of the future, whether that's AI or EVs and green technologies. But they also have most industrial supply chains kind of run through China. So it's a question of how do we, you know, What is exactly our balance here? And that's a question that I think that every administration tries to balance. But we can't let things like freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and other kind of core fundamental human rights and freedoms be lost in all of this. um So that's why I am trying to highlight the people. and the bodies that have really tried to bring this up. um I would say one thing that all your listeners can do is there's kind of a global call for prayer for these pastors and for all the members of the church. I mean, if people are on X, they can look for Bob Fu um or China Aid. This is a uh pastor who leads an organization called China Aid and you can find his posts there. you know, where the church has, I think there are country, more than 40 countries that have signed up to a kind of a global prayer for the members of the church. So I'd say that that's always an option for those who are the more faithful and the faithful politics side of the ledger listening on. You can also retweet, uh you know, know, uh posts about this that that'll help get it greater visibility. Real fast. Is any of this stuff showing up on TikTok? That's a great question. You know, I am not personally on TikTok uh because, um yeah, I am kind of worried about the security of the long-term applications, but it would be a really fascinating study. um So I would say if anyone is on TikTok, uh please, like, search for Zion Church, um and we can do kind of an experiment to see. to what extent, any, it's okay. No, I would genuinely want to know like to what extent it's viewable there. I really appreciate you coming on, William. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. How can people get connected to you and your work there? If you maybe explain it a little bit more and how people can uh get connected, sorry, with what you're doing. Yeah, so if you just go to um X, I'm William Nee. there. um I'm also on LinkedIn. I think you could find me fairly easily. Like I said, I work at the National Endowment for Democracy. um We're also on all the social media handles. um And please, like, feel free to get connected and ask me any question on China and I'd be happy to help answer or start a conversation. Well, thanks again, William. It's always a pleasure. I really appreciate you spending some time with us. Well, thanks a lot Josh and Will. It's been great to talk to you guys as always. Absolutely, and to our viewers, guys, thanks for spending this time with us and our listeners. Make sure you like, subscribe, share this with someone who needs it. We're growing and we want to continue to grow. We also have a Patreon, by the way, so make sure you check that out. We're going to keep putting more material that you won't get on the YouTube channel there, so make sure you check that out. And until next time, guys, keep your conversations that right or left, but up. Thanks and God bless.