During their summit meeting in Beijing last month, Xi Jinping supposedly intimated to Donald Trump that he was more likely to release Zion Church Pastor Ezra Jin than former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai. But neither Jin nor 17 other members of the Christian church have yet been released (ChinaAid, June 5, 2026):
More than six months have passed since authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on Zion Church, a prominent house church in Beijing, the capital of China, on Oct. 10, 2025.
Eighteen pastors and church workers, including Senior Pastor Ezra Jin, remain in detention. In an interview with The Free Press published May 11, Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, also disclosed previously unreported details of a 2021 incident in which she alleges her father was drugged.
Recounting the Oct. 10 raids, Grace Jin Drexel said she received a text message from her father early that morning informing her that fellow Zion Church pastor Wang Lin had been arrested. Shortly afterward, her mother, Anna Liu, told her she had lost contact with Pastor Jin.
Zion Church leaders then convened an emergency Zoom meeting. During the call, pastors reported that authorities were outside their homes. Participants subsequently went offline, and communication with them was lost.
A total of 18 pastors and church workers remain detained in connection with the case. Family members report that members of the legal team representing them have faced professional sanctions, including the revocation of several lawyers’ licenses.
Zion Church used to rent a large auditorium in Beijing but was forced to shutter the venue in 2018 after refusing to install facial recognition cameras. Jin and his family left China for the United States, but Pastor Jin then returned to China alone. When he did, the Chinese government imposed an exit ban on him, forbidding him from leaving the country.
Also see:
The Free Press: “Inside China’s Shocking Persecution of Christians”
“On October 10th, 2025, Pastor Jen was arrested during the largest crackdown against Christians in China since the Cultural Revolution. Raids in 11 cities nationwide detained nearly three dozen leaders. Eighteen of them, including Pastor Jin, remain in prison under charges like subverting the state or illegally disseminating information online…. ‘The Communist Party hates its citizens having any loyalty to anything other than the state.’ ”
