<span class ="kicker">The Washington Stand article featuring Smith's commentary</span>'Advocates, Lawmakers Press Trump to Uphold Prisoners of Faith, Conscience during Xi Visit'

This press release from Representative Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) was published on 2026-09-22 and titled "<span class ="kicker">The Washington Stand article featuring Smith's commentary</span>'Advocates, Lawmakers ".

<span class ="kicker">The Washington Stand article featuring Smith's commentary</span>'Advocates, Lawmakers Press Trump to Uphold Prisoners of Faith, Conscience during Xi Visit'

By Dan Hart Published September 22, 2026 With President Trump set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday as part of a state visit to Washington, human rights advocates and lawmakers are urging the commander in chief to champion the cause of Christians and other citizens who are imprisoned in China simply for practicing their faith or for advocating for freedom. A large-scale crackdown on non-government approved churches is being carried out by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past year. Last October, almost two dozen pastors and other workers from a single church called Zion Church were arrested, including founder and head pastor Ezra Jin. But in July, the power of personal advocacy was put on display as Xi’s communist regime released Jin following a personal appeal to Xi from Trump in May for Jin’s release. Now, human rights advocates such as Voice of the Martyrs’ Todd Nettleton are highlighting the plight of other imprisoned pastors such as John Cao. As detailed by Family Research Council’s Bob Fu, Cao “spent seven years in a Chinese prison for conducting humanitarian work along the China-Myanmar border,” but even two years after completing his sentence, he is still being prevented from reuniting with his family in the U.S. by the CCP. Others are urging Trump to fulfill a promise to secure the freedom of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong media mogul and champion of democracy. As Fu catalogs, the list of the wrongfully imprisoned in China goes on and on: Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer; Dr. Wang Bingzhang, a leader of the overseas Chinese democracy movement who was kidnapped by CCP agents in Vietnam; Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who exposed the truth about COVID-19. Then there are the eight pastors and members of Ezra Jin’s Zion Church who remain imprisoned, as well as Elder Li Yingqiang, Pastor Yang Rongli of Golden Lampstand Church, and Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church. These Christians are imprisoned simply for refusing to surrender the authority of their churches to the Communist Party, Fu notes. Lawmakers like Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, say that advocating on behalf of Christians and other prisoners of conscience is especially important now as persecution by the CCP “is getting far worse.” “[T]he reason why Ezra Jin’s church got targeted [is because] they refused to allow surveillance cameras into their churches,” he pointed out during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday. “It’s one of those things where the Communist Party is ubiquitous, they want to be everywhere. And for the slightest perceived infraction, they will then arrest pastors and horribly mistreat them. So this is the time for the United States, I believe, and every freedom loving country to pivot and say, ‘Religious freedom matters.’ Human rights are at the core of our relationship and should be with a dictatorship like China. Raise it and make it stick. Link it to other things, including trade.” Smith went on to emphasize that for Christians, advocating for those in prison is a direct command from God. “Our Lord said, ‘did you visit me when I was in prison’ in Matthew 25? ‘How about when you had the opportunity? Did you try to get me out of prison?’” he underscored. “I’ve met so many wonderful pastors and people over the years, including in the Soviet Union going back to 1981. My first trip there was in ’82 on behalf of religious freedom. … Ronald Reagan always raised religious freedom. He always had a list of people that he was asking — in this case, the Russian or Soviet leadership — to allow to go free. And we need to persist and tell this dictatorship, ‘This is a priority. [If] you want other things, [if] you want more trade, … well, this is the linchpin. This opens up the door.” Smith further stressed how critical the stakes are for those caught in the CCP’s brutal prison system. “If you’re arrested in China, political or religious prisoner, you’re almost always going to be tortured, and I mean horribly tortured. I had a number of hearings on what the Chinese government actually does to people, and you can’t even repeat some of it [because] it is so, so horrific. And that leaves scars on that individual, the likes of which we can’t even fathom. So I would ask all of us to be praying.” Smith, who serves as a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, recalled what Wei Jingsheng, a father of China’s democracy movement, once told him about how powerful the West’s advocacy efforts are for those in China’s prisons. “[H]e told me something I will never forget. He said, ‘When you Americans and the West kowtow and try to be all nicey-nice with these dictators, they beat us more in prison.’ He said, ‘When you are tough, when you are well-founded in your knowledge about what’s going on, and you’re able to present a case and do so right from the heart, but also fill