• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Religious Citizens Routinely Investigated for Being “Spies”

02/08/2019Xin Lu |

The police is conducting an interrogation

The Chinese authorities have brought religions to the level of political conflicts between nations, and religious individuals are stringently investigated as spies.

After house church Christian Li Zheng returned to China from Korea in June 2018, he received a summons from the National Security Division (NSD) of a city in eastern Shandong Province. The NSD repeatedly questioned him about what he was doing overseas, claiming that foreign influences were using religions to infiltrate China with the intention of stealing state secrets.

Li Zheng was warned that he mustn’t act as a religious spy. He was also given a tip not to leave the country again. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Three months later, in September, Li Zheng was questioned again by local government employees for a week about his activities in Korea. Even though Li Zheng had repeatedly told authorities that his trip had nothing to do with trying to uncover state secrets. Nevertheless, a government insider told Li Zheng that several different government departments wiretapped his communication devices.

In September 2018, Ms. Huang, a preacher from the Great Praise Church, a house church in a village under the jurisdiction of Nanyang city, in central China’s Henan Province, was taken away by police, twice, and interrogated. For reasons Ms. Huang knew not.

During the interrogation, the police station chief kept on insisting that she’d been making international phone calls when she hadn’t. That, of course, didn’t stop the authorities from prohibiting her from making international calls and restricting her communication rights.

“You recently contacted a Canadian on the phone. This is treason. You’re a spy selling out our country,” the police chief said to her, before asking straight up from whom she was receiving orders and where the church money was being kept.

 Bitter Winter has received reports from other regions where Christians say police have investigated them for “espionage” and “fraternization with foreign forces.” One citizen got into trouble for visiting his children studying in Australia; another for talking on the phone with foreign Christians; yet another for receiving religious books sent over from Korea.

These trumped-up accusations of espionage are becoming increasingly common. One State Security Bureau (SSB) official even said that in his eyes, many underground Catholic priests are “spies” maintaining illicit foreign relations.

Why the CCP is treating every Christian as a spy can be found in various statements from party leaders.

Take the words of CCP Committee Secretary Liu of Yanzhuang town in Song county, under the jurisdiction of Luoyang city in Henan Province, who said in a statement at the opening of a religion conference on September 30, 2018: “Christianity is foreign. When foreigners invaded China, they began their infiltration with religion first. Throughout history, every time foreign states invaded China; they used religion to infiltrate us. Remember: love for the country comes before the love for religion.”

Bitter Winter received a copy of a “Religious Policy and Statute Information” document issued jointly by a district United Front Work Department (UFWD) and local Bureau of Religious Affairs in Jiaozuo city of Henan in 2018. The document reads: “Use of religion for infiltration refers to foreign enemy forces using religion to employ ‘Westernization’ and ‘disintegration’ strategies against China with the intent of winning over the masses and winning the ideological front. Foreign use of religion to infiltrate the country isn’t a religious issue, but rather a political one.”

This internal government document also indicates that officials believe the Internet will become a significant means of “religious infiltration” and that schools are prominent domains of religious infiltration. Prevention of religious groups and individuals from using charity activities for evangelism is another anti-infiltration task.

Reported by Xin Lu
(All names are pseudonyms.)

Tagged With: Authorities Against Christians, House Churches, Religious Persecution

bw-profile
Xin Lu

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Target Falun Gong. 3. “Help Free My Parents”: The Story of Ding Lebin

    Target Falun Gong. 3. “Help Free My Parents”: The Story of Ding Lebin

  • Pakistan, Young Christian Sentenced to Death for Blasphemy

    Pakistan, Young Christian Sentenced to Death for Blasphemy

  • Nanning Christian Pastor Detained—For No Reason Whatsoever

    Nanning Christian Pastor Detained—For No Reason Whatsoever

  • Post-COVID Purge: Over 2,100 Church of Almighty God Members Arrested in Two Provinces

    Post-COVID Purge: Over 2,100 Church of Almighty God Members Arrested in Two Provinces

Keep Reading

  • Pakistan: Mob Burned Churches, Police Arrests—Christians
    Pakistan: Mob Burned Churches, Police Arrests—Christians

    The real instigators of the attacks against Christian places of worship have not been arrested. Two Christian brothers are in jail accused of blasphemy.

  • The U.S. Department of State 2023 Religious Freedom Report: Excellent on Enemies, Soft on Allies
    The U.S. Department of State 2023 Religious Freedom Report: Excellent on Enemies, Soft on Allies

    A masterful description of the wrongdoings of China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan is accompanied by some understatements on FoRB violations by U.S. political allies.

  • Bengbu Dissident Christian Pastor Arrested  
    Bengbu Dissident Christian Pastor Arrested  

    Pastor Wan Changchun was one of the signatories of  the 2018 statement of protest against the new Religious Affairs Regulation.

  • The Small Church That Disturbed the CCP: Preacher Chang Hao Detained in Yunnan
    The Small Church That Disturbed the CCP: Preacher Chang Hao Detained in Yunnan

    He had what looked like a good idea and distributed anti-COVID masks with Bible verses. The police did not appreciate it. 

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

MOST READ

  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 2. Dissolving Would Be Contrary to the Law by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • Crimes Against Humanity in Xinjiang Denounced at the United Nations—Again by Ruth Ingram
  • China’s Strange Battle Against Buddhists Releasing Mineral Water into Rivers by Gladys Kwok
  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 3. The Truth About “Spiritual Sales” and “Excessive Donations” by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • China Promotes a “Confucianized” Approach to the Holy Quran by Ma Wenyan
  • France: Rémi Mogenet, a Victim of Anti-Cultism, Testifies by Massimo Introvigne
  • Anti-Religious Social Credit Targets Southern Mongolian Peasants by Zeng Liqin

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY