In July, China freed Pastor Ezra Jin after he spent nearly nine months in prison for the crime of running a church and practicing his faith. This “miracle,” as he calls it, came after President Donald Trump visited China in May and raised Jin’s imprisonment directly with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
But while Jin is now with his family in America, other political prisoners in China remain. Eight of them are the pastor’s colleagues from Zion Church, who continue to face charges of running an illegal business and illegally disseminating information online in connection to their work with the church. Other church leaders, including Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife, Pang Yu, of Xi’an, are behind bars, with their cases likely to go to trial soon and each facing a sentence of more than a decade in prison. Jin writes about his colleagues in his piece for us today.
Perhaps the best known of China’s political prisoners is Jimmy Lai, founder of “Apple Daily,” the largest pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong. Lai, 78, was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison after being convicted of collusion with foreign forces under the Chinese Communist Party–imposed National Security Law in Hong Kong. Lai has already spent more than five and a half years in solitary confinement, and now with his health waning, he faces the possibility of dying in prison.
Trump has long promised to free Lai—first saying on the campaign trail in 2024 that doing so would be “easy.” But the effort has not proven so. In May, when Trump visited Beijing, he raised Lai’s case to Xi. But upon returning home, Trump’s outlook was bleak. Lai’s freedom, Trump admitted, was a “tough one” for Xi.
Jin’s release shows that international cooperation is still possible, and that pressure from foreign leaders can help attain freedom for prisoners of conscience. It’s in the United States’ best interest—and China’s too. —The Editors
It’s hard to describe exactly what freedom feels like. But for me, I can capture it in a single moment.
I was arrested last October when the Chinese government conducted coordinated raids on members of the church where I serve as lead pastor. They arrested nearly 30 of us, and later charged 18 of us with manufactured charges such as illegal use of information networks and illegal business practices. It was one of the largest raids on China’s underground churches in four decades.
I spent 266 days in prison, convinced I would be there for at least a decade. Until one day I was unexpectedly whisked away from my cell and transported to an airport. There, I was told to board a plane, where I found myself next to an official from the United States of America. I found out that President Donald Trump personally raised my case with Chinese president Xi Jinping and negotiated for my release. I was in complete shock. Is this what freedom felt like?
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