Bill Drexel is a fellow at the Center for Strategy and American Statecraft at Hudson Institute, and the son-in-law of Pastor Ezra Jin. Grace Jin Drexel is the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin.

Beijing’s nationwide operation against Zion Church this month resembled the kind of multicity raid typically reserved for dismantling organized crime syndicates, not a response to clergy’s alleged infringements on online worship regulations.

Over the weekend of Oct. 10, Chinese police, often in plain clothes and at night, descended across eleven cities to pluck nearly 30 pastors and other church leaders from their homes and public spaces. More than ten officers invaded the apartment building of the 56-year-old head pastor — father and father-in-law of the authors — to take him into custody for “illegal

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