A law that came into effect this year gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) increased powers to restrict religious practice even as several Christians remain imprisoned for carrying out their ministries, according to an advocacy group’s new report.
In the past year freedom of religion in China has deteriorated with the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress coming into effect on July1, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) stated in its October quarterly report.
“This gives the CCP legal impunity to increase control on religious communities across China,” the report states. “This law codifies Sinicization of religion in Article 46, which requires religious groups, religious schools, and places of worship to promote a sense of community for the Chinese nation including adaptation to socialist society with Chinese characteristics.”
The law marks a significant change in China’s approach to religion, the report states, furthering President Xi Jinping’s systematic effort over the past decade to “Sinicize” religion in all areas of daily life. While the CCP depicts the law as a defensive measure against separatism, extremism or terrorism, it is actually a “proactive measure to homogenize Chinese culture to the Han majority and further marginalize ethnic minorities, particularly in the predominantly Islamic Xinjiang Uyghur and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regions, and the majority Tibetan Buddhist counties and provinces in southwest China,” according to CSW.
The law also enhances China’s continued status as the world’s largest perpetrator of transnational repression, the report states.
“Article 63 of this law states that, ‘Organizations and individuals outside the territory of the People’s Republic of China that commit acts aimed at the People’s Republic of China that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division shall be pursued for legal responsibility in accordance with the law,’” CSW notes. “The article gives the CCP’s ‘long arm of repression’ legal grounds to continue intimidation, threats and surveillance in other countries, including the U.K.”
Among ongoing, urgent cases of repression, the regime is still withholding the passport of Pastor John Cao, preventing the church leader in his 60s and suffering from cancer from rejoining his family in the United States. Pastor Cao had served a seven-year prison sentence linked to his work establishing 16 schools in poverty-affected areas on the China-Myanmar border, which brought a conviction of “illegal border crossing.”
He was released from prison upon completion of his sentence in 2024.
“The exit ban is thought to be linked to his detention on 14 October 2024 in Zhenxiong, Yunnan Province when he was held for questioning after 20 police raided a meeting of new unregistered church (Peace Reformed Church) and accused him of ‘illegal evangelism’ and conducting public baptisms,” CSW reported. “Pastor Cao was recently diagnosed with, and has undergone chemotherapy treatment for, prostate cancer which has now spread to his bones and spine. Nevertheless, he is reportedly well enough to travel. His wife and two adult sons, all of whom hold U.S. citizenship, live in North Carolina.”
On Aug. 5 Pastor David Tang, founder and senior pastor of Wenzhou’s Purpose Driven Church, was detained along with a church financial administrator and five church workers. They were reportedly being held at Chongming Detention Centre, Shanghai, in a cross-provincial police operation.
“Authorities have not disclosed the reasons for their detention. Purpose Driven Church has reportedly refused to join the TSPM [government controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement],” CSW stated. “CSW’s sources suggest that Pastor David had been maintaining a positive relationship with the local police in Wenzhou, who disapprove of Shanghai police operations in Zhejiang province without communication. This confirms that the arrests have been ordered from the highest level of government irrespective of standard police procedures.”
The regime closely monitors all aspects of TSPM church operations, and freedom to worship independently is repressed, the report states. On March 17, for example, 73-year-old Pastor Wang Sanyuan was detained; officials have yet to state his location or criminal charges, and there is no indication that he has been able to meet with an attorney, according to CSW.
Pastor Wang is the lead pastor of Changchunli church, which has registered with the Religious Affairs Bureau in Jinan, Shandong Province. He is known to suffer from cardiovascular health problems for which he has been hospitalized several times, the report states.
In July, China intensified its efforts to deport hundreds of migrant workers back to Myanmar, where they face arrest or serious harm. On Aug. 20, the U.S. State Department designated Min Zin, a Myanmar-born American citizen, as wrongfully detained by China in Kunming, Yunnan, on June 3, 2025, for his work as founder of the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP) Myanmar, a leading independent research body documenting China-Myanmar border dynamics and military violence.
Zin faces charges of espionage, CSW noted.
The rights group also noted that China’s economic-first posture in Myanmar effectively provides cover for the military’s systematic destruction of churches, places of worship, and Christian minority settlements across Kachin and Chin states.
Also accused of illegal border crossings is Pastor Sun Chenghao, a 44-year-old ethnic Korean Christian pastor serving a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence after participating in Christian exchange activities in South Korea in 2023.
“His family disputes the charge of organizing illegal border crossings, noting that the group travelled using valid passports and regular procedures,” CSW states. “His wife, Jin Hua, has reported a serious deterioration in his health, including frailty, exhaustion and a temporary loss of consciousness in August 2026, raising urgent concerns about his access to medical care since the sentence began in 2025.”
His family has required financial support to assist with prison visits and subsistence costs after authorities imposed a 10,000 RMB fine on Pastor Sun.
In Hong Kong, 29-year-old pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong on Sept. 2 pleaded guilty to charges of collusion with foreign entities, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, for his role in anti-extradition protests in 2019 and singing the protest anthem ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord.’ CSW reported.
“He has already been in detention for six years,” the report states. “At the time of writing, no date has been set for sentencing.”
Among 415 people proactively or retroactively arrested in cases said to ‘endanger national security’ as of Aug. 1, is Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on Feb. 9 at age 78, “which amounts to a life sentence,” CSW noted.
“This has created an atmosphere of self-censorship,” the report stated.
Following the release of Zion Church Senior Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri on July 4, he has publicly advocated the release of the remaining six pastors, an elder and a pastor’s wife who remain in detention. Aug. 14-18 court hearings did not reach a verdict in the unusually accelerated procedure, delalying their trial.
“Their legal representative fled to Taiwan with her family on Sept. 2,” CSW noted.
Pastor Jin oversees an unregistered Protestant house church estimated to serve at least 5,000 members, and his daughter, Grace Jin, told CSW that Zion Church is still operating at the same level despite the detention of so many of its key leaders.
“This is due to foundation work laid down many years earlier,” CSW reported. “Zion Church encourages its members to ‘walk and worship’ whereby a congregant listens to prerecorded sermons and hymns in the park with friends, or alone on the way to work. These online materials can be prepared anywhere, and the church remains resilient as it does not rely on a physical space.”
It is possible that Pastor Jin could soon resume his role as lead pastor of the church, CSW added.
“Acting senior pastor, Pastor Sean Long Fei, likely only avoided arrest as he was in the U.S. at the time the [October 2025] detentions were made,” CSW reported. “Other pastors are based in South Korea and Thailand. Advocacy efforts continue, but the church remains a success story for its innovation and buoyancy of religious groups under pressure.”
The church and has faced hostility from the authorities for several years, with officials in Beijing in September 2018 shutting down its main building after it refused to install 24 closed-circuit cameras.
The October 2025 crackdown led to the detention of 28 Zion Church leaders across the country. Pastor Jin and 17 others were arrested on charges of “illegally using information networks” for operating a hybrid, online and in person, church model nationwide.
On June 18, nine of the detainees were released on bail pending trial. The remaining nine detainees, including Pastor Jin, were transferred to the Yinhai District People’s Procuratorate in Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to face prosecution, with the charges against them reportedly escalated to “illegal business operations” and “fraud.”
