Dan Sullivan, the Republican U.S. Senator from Alaska and Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), presides over a hearing titled “The CCP’s War on Religion: Threats to Religious Freedom and Its Importance to the United States.” (November 20, 2025)
[People News]U.S. lawmakers and religious freedom advocates said at a congressional hearing on Thursday (November 20) that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging a “systematic war on faith” against all religious groups inside China. At the hearing, religious experts noted that this is not only a human rights issue but also a national security issue. “The CCP is at war with faith—and at war with us.”
According to Voice of America, the hearing was chaired by Dan Sullivan, Republican Senator from Alaska and Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). In his opening remarks, he stated that the CCP is attempting to absorb all religions in the country into the Party-state system.
“The CCP is not satisfied with regulating people’s behavior,” he said. “It also wants to control conscience, intervening in the most powerful and most personal relationship—the relationship between an individual and God.”
Sullivan said Beijing’s goal is to achieve “complete subordination of religious faith to state ideology,” with control reaching into doctrines, leadership structures, architectural styles, and even online worship. Referring to imprisoned Christian pastor Wang Yi, he said: “Although Pastor Wang Yi is in prison, he and millions like him have not surrendered.”
Not Only a Human Rights Issue, but a National Security Issue
Chris Smith, Republican Representative from New Jersey and Co-chair of the CECC, who has long focused on human rights and religious freedom in China, said that religious freedom must be regarded as a core strategic concern of the United States.
On November 20, 2025, Chris Smith speaks at the hearing “The CCP’s War on Religion: Threats to Religious Freedom and Its Importance to the United States.”
He said: “Fundamentally, religious freedom is about the rights of conscience—the ‘spark of heaven’…the inviolable territory of the soul.”
He stated that the CCP is attempting to “control the hearts, minds, and spirits of every Chinese citizen.” He described the CCP’s campaigns against Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and house-church Christians as “pure and complete totalitarianism.”
Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback urged the U.S. to incorporate religious freedom into national security strategy.
“We must shift our thinking from ‘this is a human rights issue’ to ‘this is a national security issue,’” he said. “The CCP is at war with faith, and it is at war with us.”
Brownback said Beijing “fears religious freedom more than U.S. aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons,” calling it America’s “most powerful weapon in this struggle.”
He urged the U.S. government to integrate religious freedom into its China strategy, impose stronger sanctions, and openly support persecuted groups—including Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and house-church Christians.
Zion Church Becomes a Focus: A New Wave of Large-Scale Suppression
The hearing focused in particular on the recent mass arrests targeting Beijing’s Zion Church. Rights groups and media say it is the largest crackdown on an independent Christian church since 2018.
Pastor Jin Mingri, founder of Zion Church, and nearly 30 other church members were taken away in October. His daughter, Grace Jin Drexel—now a staff member in the U.S. Congress—testified that 18 Zion Church members have now been formally arrested.
“This crackdown has been called the largest suppression of an independent church by the CCP since the Cultural Revolution,” she said.
Zion Church was founded in 2007 and grew to more than 1,500 members before its Beijing venue was closed in 2018. Grace Jin said that after being forced out of its physical church building, Zion Church developed a hybrid online-offline model and expanded nationally.
“Because the church lost its meeting place, it forced my father’s church to develop a nationwide hybrid model,” she said. Now Zion Church reaches “about 10,000 people daily.”
She described the October police raid on her father’s home, saying authorities sent “30 police officers” to arrest the 56-year-old pastor.
“No matter how powerful the Chinese Communist Party is, it can never take away our faith and convictions,” she said at the hearing, urging lawmakers to “say our names,” including Pastor Jin Mingri and other detained leaders.
She also reported facing transnational repression since speaking out publicly, including someone impersonating a U.S. federal agent calling her mother with threats, and strangers following her in Washington.
Muslims and Tibetans Describe Ongoing Persecution
Ma Ju, a member of China’s Hui Muslim community who fled the country in 2011, testified that the scale of repression against Muslims by the CCP is far greater than many people realize.
“This is the most severe, widespread, and systematically engineered crisis of survival and freedom faced by Chinese Muslims since 1949,” his interpreter read from his statement.
Ma Ju said that in Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Yunnan, large numbers of mosque domes and minarets have been demolished, and fasting during Ramadan, wearing headscarves, growing beards, or privately teaching the Quran can all lead to “police interrogation, fines, detention, or being sent to reeducation camps.”
He added that the repression in Xinjiang has not ended but “evolved” into “total surveillance and control,” including ongoing forced labor, family separation, and digital monitoring, and that the CCP threatens relatives inside China to intimidate Muslims overseas.
Bhuchung Tsering, head of the International Campaign for Tibet, said the CCP’s Tibet policy has shifted from the past “total destruction” of religious sites to today’s “control and elimination of Tibetan identity.”
He said: “The CCP not only restricts Tibetans’ religious freedom but also seeks to interfere in the activities of Tibetans overseas.”
He cited Beijing’s control of pilgrimages to Lhasa, pressure on Nepal to suppress Tibetan religious activity, and its claim to the authority to select the reincarnations of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. He called on Washington to fully implement the Tibet Policy and Support Act, sanction officials who interfere with reincarnation, and “firmly reject” any CCP-appointed Dalai Lama.
“Controlling the Entire Inner Life of a Person”
Former Chinese house-church leader and founder of ChinaAid, Bob Fu, said the CCP’s religious control has entered “a new dangerous stage.”
“The CCP is no longer satisfied with controlling churches and mosques; it now seeks to control the entire inner life of citizens,” he said.
Fu listed cases such as pastors receiving long prison sentences for managing church offerings, children being barred from churches, and Christians prosecuted for attending overseas Bible conferences. He mentioned an Inner Mongolian Christian woman sentenced to nearly five years for “distributing free Bibles.”
He also described pro-CCP demonstrators surrounding his home in Texas for months, calling it an example of “the CCP’s persecution crossing borders.”
U.S. Lawmakers: Freedom of Faith Is Core to American Values
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) stated that one of America’s founding purposes is the protection of religious freedom.
“We see many Chinese Christians and leaders persecuted,” he said, adding that Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists are also persecuted under Xi Jinping’s campaign to “Sinicize religion.”
Former CECC Co-chair, Democratic Representative and Catholic Jim McGovern said that although China’s constitution claims to guarantee religious freedom, the reality is “completely the opposite.”
“They don’t respect or follow” their own constitutional commitments, he said. The CCP says that under China’s constitution, citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief,” and the state protects “normal religious activities.”
Bipartisan Lawmakers Call for Concrete Action to Impose “Real Consequences” on Beijing
Lawmakers from both parties urged concrete actions, including legislation to combat transnational repression and full use of the Magnitsky Act and “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)” sanctions already applied to China.
Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA) said she was struck by the courage of Chinese believers who continue worshiping under enormous pressure. “The fear is real, the threat is real,” she said. “How, under such pressure, do China’s religious leaders still carry out their ministries, grow their congregations, and maintain their faith?”
Former Ambassador Brownback answered that only “real consequences”—those that “hit them in the pocketbook” or measures “they fear”—can influence Beijing’s actions.
Senator Sullivan, Chairman of the CECC, said the Commission’s task is to send a message to believers in China: “The CCP wants Chinese believers to feel isolated and forgotten,” he said. “Our responsibility is to show them—they are not alone.” △
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