China Escalates Persecution of Christians to Unprecedented Levels
Communist regime targets foreigners, evangelical house churches, and dissident Catholics
China’s repression of Christians has surged to record levels as the regime intensifies its crackdown on evangelical house churches, dissident Catholics, and even foreigners in China, according to reports from local churches, international agencies, and the Chinese government.
Those being severely punished are Protestants who refuse to join the state-controlled Three Self Church or Catholics who remain faithful to the underground Catholic Church instead of joining the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) church governed by the Vatican-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concordat.
According to International Christian Concern’s 2024 report, the government investigated, threatened, or detained at least 12,000 Christians for participating in house church activities, with more than 1,000 individuals sentenced or sent to “re-education camps.”
The CCP regime also shut down 2,000 house churches and demolished 500 churches and meeting places across the nation.
The Church of Almighty God, which claims to be the fastest-growing house church movement in China, suffered from the persecution in 2024 more than in any previous year, its officials reported, with 24 of its members dying of torture, brainwashing, and abuse from the police.
According to the church’s figures, 19,053 of its members were arrested; 2,175 were convicted; 1,051 were sentenced to three years imprisonment or longer; and 168 were jailed for seven years or more. One member received the longest sentence of 14 years.
More than 20 pastors and members from the Hubei Suizhou Word of Life Church were arrested for “spreading heresy,” with charges including organizing worship, church activities, and discipleship training. Nine were formally indicted, and four were released on bail.
On Christmas Day 2024, at another Word of Life church in Nyingchi, Tibet, 10 Christians were criminally charged for evangelizing, with three formally arrested and seven released on bail.
Churches Labeled “Evil Cults”
House churches that subscribe to evangelical teachings or the doctrines of the Reformation are being classified as “xie jiao” — a term which literally means “organizations promoting heterodox teachings” but translated in China’s official English-language documents as “evil cults.”
In its annual report published on WeChat in mid-February, China’s Ministry of Public Security boasted that it had conducted 56,000 raids against the “xie jiao” in 2024, targeting over 17 million believers.
“Public security authorities across the country have also carried out anti-xie jiao education in villages, universities, primary and secondary schools, residential communities, governmental institutions, and enterprises to enhance public vigilance against xie jiao recruitment efforts,” the report stated.
While the “xie jiao” label was previously mostly used to target new non-Christian religious movements like the Falun Gong, the atheist CCP dictatorship is expanding the category to suppress networks of house churches.
“What is a xie jiao? The answer is, any religious organization the authorities decide to suppress,” Bitter Winter, a magazine reporting on religious liberty and human rights, noted. A “xie jiao” is punished by Article 300 of China’s Criminal Code, with heavy prison penalties.
An 85-page report published by China Aid Christians in 2024 noted that the CCP had ramped up its efforts to fully implement President Xi Jinping’s “Sinicization of religion” policy.
The policy strictly controls religious education for minors and bans children from churches, forces clergy to undergo political indoctrination, alters the Bible to align with communist ideology, forces churches to sing hymns to Chairman Mao and Xi Jinping, and requires pastors to preach sermons reinforcing communism.
“By controlling symbols, teachings, and personnel, Beijing is fundamentally transforming these religions so that they promote allegiance — not to people’s religious beliefs, but to the Party,” Human Right Watch explained.
Communists Crack Down on Foreigners
On April 1, the CCP’s National Religious Affairs Administration (NRAA) released 85 new regulations governing the religious activities of foreigners visiting or living in China.
The Catholic diocese of Shanghai was the first to publish them. The Catholic Church in China — the body loyal to the CCP and governed by the terms of the Vatican-CCP concordat — also posted the document on its website.
The newly revised “Implementation Rules for the Regulations on the Administration of Religious Activities of Foreigners in the People’s Republic of China” takes effect on May 1. Under the rules, foreigners are only permitted to attend state-controlled churches.
They also are required to seek state authorization before holding collective religious activities in churches, monasteries, or temples. Except for Chinese clergy who are permitted or invited to preside over religious activities, only foreigners will be allowed to attend religious activities held by foreigners.
Religious, cultural, and academic exchanges between foreigners in China and Chinese religious groups, religious schools, religious venues, etc. must be conducted only through state-approved religious groups directly under the control of the central government.
A foreigner may only bring a “reasonable quantity” of religious printed or audio-visual material for personal use and is prohibited from bringing “distributable religious printed materials and religious audio-visual products.”
The government will grant permission for any religious activity conducted by a foreign organization only if it has a record of “being friendly to China” and is ready to “respect the principle of independence and self-management of Chinese religions.”
Christians Persecuted for Online Activity
The Chinese government continues to use facial recognition technology to monitor religious activities, with over 40,000 new surveillance cameras installed in 2024 specifically for monitoring churches, temples, and religious schools, Freedom House revealed in its China Report for 2024.
“Members of marginalized religious and ethnic minority groups are among the internet users most vulnerable to extralegal detention, torture, and killing,” the report stated. These groups “face particularly harsh treatment for their online activities.”
In 2024, the CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) announced it had shut down 14,624 “illegal” websites, removed 259 apps, and terminated 127,878 individual social media accounts.
“People face severe legal and extralegal repercussions for online activities like sharing news stories, talking about their religious beliefs, and communicating with family members and others overseas,” the report noted.
Catholics Targeted Despite Vatican-CCP Accord
Last July, Chinese authorities removed Hallow from the Apple App Store in China. Hallow, which provides Catholic devotional content, was the first religious app to top the Apple App Store charts, with more than 14 million downloads since its launch in 2018.
In the Catholic diocese of Baoding, Frs. Chen Hekun and Ji Huitian were “forcibly disappeared.” Meanwhile, Fr. Xie Tianming “lost contact” and is suspected to have been taken to a secret center for “brainwashing” and “political reeducation,” China Aid reported.
Similarly, Bishop Shao Zhumin of the Catholic diocese of Wenzhou has been taken away and lost contact with the outside world because of his opposition to the interference of Communist authorities in the affairs of the diocese.
Underground Catholic bishops and laypeople who refused to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association are among the most heavily persecuted groups in China, Bitter Winter reported.
A Hudson Institute report listed 10 Catholic bishops who remain in prison or have “disappeared” for refusing to submit to the CPCA following the signing of the Vatican-CCP in 2018.
That agreement was renewed for a third time last October despite the increasing persecution of Catholics. The Vatican agreed to extend the accord, which permits the CCP to appoint bishops of its choice to Chinese Catholic dioceses, for another four years.
“The Vatican Party remains dedicated to furthering the respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party, in view of the further development of bilateral relations for the benefit of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese people as a whole,” the Holy See Press Office said.
Human Rights Watch is concerned about this.
“By renewing a secretive deal with Beijing, the Vatican is effectively endorsing the Chinese government’s perversion of religions and is dangerously close to being complicit in the country’s deepening rights abuses,” it warned.
However, the Vatican “has made it chillingly clear that neither [Cardinal] Zen’s arrest, nor the continued detention, enforced disappearance, and imprisonment of Catholic bishops and followers in China … will sway its actions,” it added.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.